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THE 

Negro as an Economic 
Factor in Alabama 



Waights Gibbs Henry 

A.B. Southern University, 1900; B.D. Vanderbilt University, 
1902; A.M. University of Alabama, 1911 



A DISSERTATION IN PARTIAL FULFILL- 
MENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DE- 
GREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, GRAD- 
UATE SCHOOL, BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 1918 



Printed for the Author 

Nashville, Term.; Dallas, Tex.; Richmond, Va. 

Publishing House M. E. Church, South 

Smith & Lamar, Agents 

1919 



ASUS 



01ft. 
Ant 
teAH 17 W2@ 



..--■ 



But knowledge to their eyes, her ample page, 

Rich with the spoils 0/ time, did ne'er unroll; 

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage 

And froze the genial currents of the soul. 

— Gray. 

"Ich furchte nicht die Schrecken der Natur, 
Wenn ich des Herzens wilde Qualen zahme.' 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Introduction and Viewpoint 7 

The Importance of the Subject and My Interest in It. 

CHAPTER II. 
The Past History 13 

Causes of Immigration — Not a Moral Question — The 
Cause and Continuance Were Economic — Methods and 
Reasons for Emancipation — The Condition at Freedom 
Was "Sans Everything-" — Different Tribal Stocks. 

CHAPTER III. 
The Present Location 22 

The Number in the State — The Number in Cities by 
Sex — Essentially a Rural People, but Not Evenly Dis- 
tributed. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Meaning of Social Differences 27 

Social Differences Open Some, but Close Other, Eco- 
nomic Possibilities — Low Morals and Irresponsibilities 
Also Determining Factors — Social Differences Operate 
among All Peoples and Different Classes of the Same 
People — Treatment by Slave Owner, Yeoman, and Poor 
White — Prison Life Based Partially on Social Differ- 
ences — Though Race Antipathy Is Common, the Negro 
Has Received Much Good from the Whites. 

CHAPTER V. 
The State's Resources 43 

Fruits — Nuts — Live Stock — The Value of Stock Owned 
by Negroes — Minerals — Manufactured Products — Meth- 
ods of Communication — Crops of Cotton — Diversification 
in Several Counties — The Factors in Production — The 
Place of Capitalist and Wage Earner. 



S3 



6 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

CHAPTER VI. PAQK 
The Importance of the Negro Industrially in Ala- 
bama 

Classes in Society Help or Hinder Each Other — The 
Negro Increases in Various Industries — A Comparison 
with the Whites in Gainful Occupations — A Comparison 
with the German — Any Scheme to Better the Land, to 
Diversify Crops, and to Increase the General Wealth of 
the State Must Include the Negro. 

CHAPTER VII. 
Some Elements of Inefficiency 58 

Unreliability — Shiftlessness — Theft — Narrow Training 
— Lack of Independence — Slow Workers — The Credit 
System — Absence of Family Life — Immorality — Void of 
Initiative — The Place of Labor Unions — Health. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Forces for Efficiency 7 1 

Education and Possessions — Is the Negro Capable of 
Receiving an Education? — Two Kinds of Education 
Urged by Advanced Negroes — The Type of Schools Now 
Used — Literacy and Illiteracy — No Compulsory Educa- 
tion — Benefits Conferred by Education — Disfranchise- 
ment — The Power of Wealth — Wealth Necessary for 
Raising and Satisfying Cultural Wants — Property Owned 
by Negroes — Problems Not Seriously Considered — Will 
the White Man Deal with the Negro as He Did with the 
Indian? 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Uplifting Agent 97 

Education the Agent for Economic Betterment — The 
Lack of Seriousness in Education, Even for Whites, in 
Public Schools, Colleges, and Universities — The Condi- 
tion of Elementary Education for Negroes — A Suggested 
Plan for a New Order. 

Reference Books J 07 



THE NEGRO AS AN ECONOMIC 
FACTOR IN ALABAMA. 



CHAPTER I. 
Introduction and Viewpoint. 

It is very easy for one who is entirely ignorant of 
the negro question to give utterance to false views 
concerning the advancement of the race. It is not 
difficult for one who is wholly out of sympathy with 
the race to magnify the negro's stupidity, to believe that 
he was designed from the beginning of his creation to 
forever remain a "hewer of wood and a drawer of 
water." 

Well-meaning but misguided reformers, especially 
among the Northern whites, 1 and the inflammatory 
utterances of the injudicious blacks, have unques- 
tionably retarded the progress of the negro race. No 
one doubts that the motive in each case was good, but, 
unfortunately, motives and results are not always 
identical. 

After hearing pathetic recitals concerning his 
squalor, poverty and ignorance, men and women of 
means of other sections of our country have been 
moved to help the negro of the South. They cen- 
tered on education as the best means to eradicate 
these evils. So extraterritorial white teachers came 
into our midst to instruct the negro youth. 2 This act, 

international Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV., p. 340, article 
"Negro Education." 

international Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV., p. 340, article 
"Negro Education," and article on John Brown (1800-1850) 
in Vol. LIL, p. 359. 



8 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama, 

wrong or right, greatly embittered the Southern 
whites against these teachers, and hence social ostra- 
cism was their portion. They were not welcomed in 
the South by the white people, nor were they received 
into polite society. The years that have intervened 
between the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee and 
this very date show no material change in this regard. 
We do not have to go far to find a reason. It was 
impossible for the slave of yesterday to be looked 
upon by the erstwhile owner as his equal to-day. 

This would-be uplift of the negro race by educa- 
tion in point of time, though not as a necessary ac- 
companiment, came along coevally with one of the 
most nefarious and dastardly vile practices ever 
sanctioned by the Federal government — the reign of 
the scalawag and the carpetbagger. 3 

These unfortunate experiments accentuated the bit- 
terness of the defeat of the South and hence post- 
poned for years the amicable relation which should 
have existed between the whites and the blacks of the 
South. So the sympathetic and constructive native 
whites had to uproot the evil of the form of that sys- 
tem which instilled a rebellious spirit in the negroes, 
for they were taught that the Southern white man 
was their enemy. At last the whole nation has dis- 
covered that the elevation of the race will come best 
and quickest by no intervention from abroad, but 
by a mutual attempt to harmonize the discordant 
elements that exist and to develop the best qualities 
in both races. This attempt will, no doubt, put a 
premium on the virtues of each class, while the evils 

'World's Best Histories, Vol. VIII., Chapter V, pp. no- 
125. 



Introduction and Viewpoint. 9 

will receive their justly deserved disfavor. The ra- 
tional justification for the investment of any life or 
any expenditure of money is that there shall be an 
adequate return for such an investment or expendi- 
ture. That a commensurate return is possible from 
every school built, equipped and maintained for the 
youth of any people is not an open question, but the 
methods employed in the management of the school 
may be of doubtful propriety. 

My ancestors were all slave owners. From them 
I inherited the customary attitude which the slave 
owner assumes toward the slave. I was reared in 
direct contact and in personal association with many 
of the old slaves — ex-slaves. Though freed, the ma- 
jority of them voluntarily remained on my father's 
farm. So great was his kindness to them and so 
immeasurable was their affection for "Old Master" 
that they refused to leave when dowered with free- 
dom. Their sentiment was amply expressed for them 
in the words of Ruth to Naomi. 4 Only a few remain 
to-day, since the most of them have died. Just re- 
cently one passed away who was nearly one hundred 
and five years old. The negro's superstitions, folk- 
lore, religious proclivities, and social customs are well 
known to me. 

On the other hand, my Church, the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, gives an annual donation 
to negro schools for the better equipment of their 
teachers and preachers. 5 

"Bible, Ruth, Chapter I., verses 16, 17. 

6 Negro Yearbook, 191 7, p. 20; also report of Woman's 
Missionary Society, 1915, at Little Rock, Ark., published by 
Smith & Lamar, Nashville, Tenn. 



io The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Some of my most highly esteemed friends are 
teachers and social workers among them. With an 
inherited tradition on the one hand and a sympathetic 
interest for the race on the other, I feel that I can 
approach the question of the economic interest dis- 
passionately and impartially. 

The task in hand is more than an attempt merely 
to describe the economic question as it relates to the 
negro. It is not, however, an attempt to solve such 
a problem. For such a question, like all moral and 
social principles, will forever lie in the state of proc- 
ess. Such questions require a continuous adaptation 
to new environment and such an adjustment as will 
be perpetually progressive. 

To rightly understand our subject we must remem- 
ber that we are not studying the question of a slave 
nor the larger question of slavery. We must re- 
member that we are studying the present attainment 
of a section of a race living in Alabama in the twen- 
tieth century. The methods of transportation and 
world communication are vastly different now from 
those of any other age in point of swiftness and ef- 
ficiency. Competition is keener than ever before and 
is ever tightening. We are a changing group in a 
changing world. "Time makes ancient good un- 
couth." So to discuss the economic force of the 
negro from an ideal state is one thing, but to study 
it from the real state is another. Precisely we must 
study the question of a man who hails from the di- 
vision of the human family that as yet has shown no 
marked ability as a leader in the world's progress. 
We are to observe a man who is only one generation 
from slavery and from three to five generations re- 



Introduction and Viewpoint. n 

moved from savagery. This crude man is placed by 
the side of another race that is virile, rich, educated, 
skilled, and numerous. We cannot theorize as to 
where he ought to go in the ascending scale of prog- 
ress nor where he has a right to go ; but we take him 
as we find him, not in the legal or other professions, 
not as a banker or capitalist, and not as a captain of 
industry, though he is in all of these in a limited way, 
but we discuss his record as it really has been made 
— the record of an uneducated and poorly-equipped 
farmer. 

The attention of social workers, sympathetic 
friends, and leaders of that race is called to the con- 
clusions herein reached. To cure any disease we 
must treat, not the symptom, but the originating cause. 
We have no theory of a personal character to ad- 
vance in this study; we have simply followed in a 
scientific way wherever the facts in history have led. 
The evidence in the case seems to be this : 

(a) Potentially, the negro is an asset to the State, 
but actually he is a burden, conditioned on his ig- 
norance. 

(b) The State has capitalized his vices, but has 
neglected his virtues. 

(c) Development must be along racial lines. 
Progress will not be made by an attempt to obliterate 
social distinctions, to submerge racial characteristics, 
or to amalgamate races; but progress depends upon 
the awakening of the negro's love for his own poets, 
sculptors, actors, and musicians. He has gifts which 
are purely racial, so his culture must be distinctly his 
own. 

(d) His achievement should be viewed not only by 



12 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

the height of his present attainment, but cognizance 
of the deep pit of his previous condition should be 
remembered. 

In this study we neither moralize nor theorize. 
We pursue the method of describing, of analyzing, 
and of setting forth the cause of certain phenomena 
operative for good or ill in an economic way in the 
negro race. This is done by an examination of his 
origin, present location, number, habits, professions, 
industries, causes of inefficiency, causes of efficiency, 
the influence of race antipathy and race conflict, his 
life as a criminal and as a freeman, the meaning of 
the change in agricultural systems, and other causes 
and conditions which narrow, enlarge, or modify his 
economic position in Alabama. This furnishes a 
basis and viewpoint of our discussion. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Past History. 

Let us now examine the past history of the negro 
in order to give him a proper valuation. German 
immigration in the past has been the result of eco- 
nomic conditions which were forced by the direct and 
indirect effects of war or of religious oppression. 
Italian immigration, which is sometimes permanent 
and sometimes only seasonal, is now altogether based 
on economic grounds. In some nations societies 
have existed for the purpose of helping emigrants to 
other countries or to some sparsely-settled colony of 
some particular country in question. 1 Such a person 
helped was known as a redemptioner or indented 
servant. Also there were the pauper and criminal 
classes, which were sent out of England to America 
and sometimes to Australia. 2 Sometimes we see a 
migration going on within the territorial limits of a 
country, an example of which we find among the 
American Indians. 3 But the negro differs from all 
of these peoples. He is here by no choice of his own. 
He was captured, sold, and brought here as live stock. 
Certainly all negroes that were purchased in slave 
markets never reached American shores, for the mor- 
tality rate was fearfully high on the seas. The ship 
companies were not under strict laws nor under en- 
lightened sanitary regulations. The long voyage of 
six or ten weeks' duration over the waters, the 
crowded condition of the slaves on board, together 

J E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, p. 
67. 2 Idem., p. 68. 

3 F. E. Leupp, In Red Man's Land, pp. 39-63. 



14 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

with the rough treatment received, made many an 
easy prey for disease. 

The question of the beginning and the continuance 
of slavery in the United States was not solely a moral 
question. Professor Callender 4 gives this quotation : 
"The infernal spirit of Abraham and Joshua, of 
Socrates and Plato, of Cicero and Seneca, of Alfred 
the Great, of Las Casas, who laid the foundation of 
negro slavery in America, of Baltimore, Penn, and 
Washington! These names alone show that the 
spirit of the slave master is not that love of oppres- 
sion and cruelty which the exercise of unlimited 
power over his fellow creatures is apt to beget in 
man; that infernal spirit is, and not universally, a 
mere effect of keeping slaves." Whitfield and Jona- 
than Edwards both believed that slavery was an ordi- 
nance of God. B Wheeden gives this quotation : "George 
Downing, afterwards Sir George, then a clergyman, 
writes to John Winthrop from the West Indies: Tf 
you go to Barbados, you will see a flourishing island 
and many able men. I believe they have bought this 
year no lesse than a thousand negroes ; and the more 
they buie, the better able they are to buie, for in a 
yeare and a halfe they will earn (with God's blessing) 
as much as they cost. 9 " However, it was not a ques- 
tion of a right or a wrong so much as it was a ques- 
tion of making money by means of such traffic and 

4 G. F. Callender, Economic History of the United States, 

p. 742. 

6 J. F. Rhodes, History of United States, Vol. I, p. 5- 
a W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New 

England; E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United 

States, p. 71, 



The Past History. 15 

of receiving justifiable returns by the use of slave 
labor 

The first negro slaves were brought to Virginia in 
1619, and they increased to two thousand in 1670. 7 
These slaves were brought in a Dutch vessel. The 
first ship fitted for such purpose in the English colo- 
nies sailed from Boston in 1670. Naturally, since 
the Northern whites could not work the negroes with 
profit, they were sold in large numbers to the whites 
of the South. Here they could be used on the plan- 
tations effectively, as they could endure both heat 
and malaria. 8 "The right or wrong of slavery we do 
not discuss nor attempt to determine who was respon- 
sible therefor. The latter geographic limitations of 
slavery in the United States were determined, not by 
conscience, but by climatic conditions. It was the 
climate at the North and the cotton gin at the South 
that regulated the distribution of slave labor. I have 
scant respect for a conscience too sensitive to own 
certain property because it is immoral, but which 
without compunction will sell the same to another at 
full market value. Had the slave owners of the 
North manumitted their slaves and not sold them 
because their labor ceased to be profitable, there would 
have been more respect for their subsequent aboli- 
tion zeal. It is a matter of pride with us that no 
Southern colony or State ever had a vessel engaged 
in the slave trade. And several of the Southern 
States were the first to pass stringent laws against the 

T B. T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, p. 85. 
8 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, 
P- 739- 

*C. B. Galloway, Methodist Review, p. 754. 



16 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

importation of African slaves." These quotations and 
citations are not given as a defense for the position 
of the South nor to deny that, viewed wholly from 
a moral issue, slavery was essentially wrong. And, 
viewed from a moral issue, the North was the greater 
sinner, since Northern money bought and Northern 
ships brought the slaves, and in Charleston "eight 
thousand four hundred and forty-four were sold for 
account of persons living in Rhode Island, Massa- 
chusetts, and Connecticut." 1 As an institution slavery 
would never have had such a hold among us had not 
the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney stimu- 
lated the cotton 11 industry. 

This period of servitude had some disadvantages : 
(i) Cost of superintendence; (2) the laborer was un- 
skilled; (3) the laborer was lacking in versatility. The 
purchase price, the cost of maintenance, the risk of 
escape or death made the system unprofitable. 12 Per 
contra, there are statements that assure us of the 
profitableness of the slave system. 13 "One can raise 
enough indigo and rice in one year to pay for his 
entire cost, or forty pounds in money." Again, it is 
urged that labor can be organized and directed by a 
controlling mind to a definite end. 14 

It was estimated that twenty negroes for a year 
would cost $1,000 for hire, $200 for clothing, and 

10 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, 

P- 139. 

"J. E. Cairnes, The Slave Power, p. 44. 
12 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, 
pp. 298, 136. 

3 J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 4. 
4 J. E. Cairnes, The Slave Power, p. 44. 



131 



The Past History. 17 

$400 for board. The same authority states that six- 
teen white persons for hire for a year would cost 
$2,112 and $800 for board. 15 

The Bureau of Agriculture at Washington made 
an investigation of the amount of money for which 
a slave might be hired for a year. (This was for 
i860.) The estimate was that a man could be hired 
for $138, a woman could be hired for $89, and a 
youth for $66. This obtained in Alabama in that 
period. "Besides, money expended for negroes is 
money expended for the weak." 16 

All of these statements, however, mean nothing un- 
less we are thinking in terms of some definite period. 
It is false to facts to say that slavery was unprofita- 
ble. In a poor section of the country where the land 
was exhausted, especially when cotton was not com- 
manding a fancy price and when the slave was costly, 
it was unprofitable. But when labor, free labor, was 
not to be had, when the country had to be cleared, 
when the soil was fresh and capable of great produc- 
tion, and cotton was "king," it was economically 
profitable. 17 This is very important to remember, be- 
cause some believe that the reason why land in Vir- 
ginia was worth $8 per acre was due to her being a 
slave State. The same authority seems to account for 
Ohio's good land — $20 per acre — on the basis that 
she was a freeman's State. 18 

15 E. Ingle, Southern Side Lights, p. 77. 

"William G. Brown, The Lower South in American His- 
tory, p. 251. 

17 Idem, p. 20; E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the 
United States, p. 135. 

18 J. E. Cairnes, The Slave Power, p. 81. 
2 



18 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Emancipation came by two methods : by vote, as 
in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, 13 etc., and 
by war, which was concluded in 1865. "The process 
by which slavery was overthrown was, in fact, quite 
foreign to the purpose of the avowed abolitionist. 20 
Nevertheless, "slavery which ended in emancipation 
was economically, politically, intellectually, and 
morally unfit to survive." 21 

These words are further quoted in justification of 
emancipation : "We hold these truths to be self-evi- 
dent : that all men are created equal ; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." 22 This statement was made 
to meet a particular need and should, therefore, not 
be universally applied. It meant that the American 
citizen, then, was or should be an equal sharer with 
a Britisher in life, liberty, and happiness. 28 

The largest "number of negroes in Alabama up to 
1865 were in slavery, though there were a few who 
had freedom. From 1850 to i860 free negroes (by 
birth or by reason of escape) increased at the rate of 
12.33 per cent, the whites for the same period in- 
creased at the rate of 39.97 per cent, and slaves in- 
creased at the rate of 23.39 per cent. With the ex- 
ception of the decennium ending at 1830, the free 
negro perceptibly decreased in number from 1790 to 

19 J. F. Rhodes, A History of the United States, etc., Vol. 
I., pp. 14, 15. 

- >0 William G. Brown, The Lower South in American His- 
tory, p. 101. 21 Idem, p. 252. 

" 2 The Introduction to the Declaration of Independence. 

23 See Chapter VIII., p. 61 (Education), this dissertation. 



The Past History. 19 

i860. 24 So, then, after a century or more of servi- 
tude of an unwilling kind he found himself suddenly 
endowed with the power of full citizenship. He was, 
as Shakespeare says, "sans everything." But this 
"sans everything" was not superinduced by senility, 
but arose by reason of a sudden and unprepared- for 
freedom. He had no personal property, 25 relatively 
speaking, and no landed estates worth the mention at 
the final overthrow of the Confederacy. He had no 
implements with which to till the soil, nor was he 
able to purchase these necessities. Only the few who 
were foremen or apprentices in blacksmith shops, in 
carpentry, and like industries were prepared for 
other than the cotton industry. Thus the race in 
Alabama emerged into a new life, a new experience, 
with no equipment for winning wealth. The picture 
before us is that of an unprepared people newly 
thrust forth to make their competitive way against 
superior odds. 

This brief recital shows that the negro in America, 
and consequently the negro in Alabama, is without a 
parallel on the earth to-day. He simply has no past 
history. It is true that the negro has lived for cen- 
turies in his African home, but that history is void 
of any historical significance to the American negro. 
His language is ours, for in Alabama there is not the 
slightest trace of a dialect which persists from his an- 
cestral mother tongue. His religion is ours, taking 
such form — largely Methodist, Baptist, and Presby- 
terian — as he inherited from the white man of Ala- 



4 Eighth Census, p. 9. 

5 M. N. Work, Negro Yearbook (1917), p. 1 ; J. A. Til- 
linghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 193. 



251 



20 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama, 

bama. His social customs and usages are ours, modi- 
fied only by his inability, financial or intellectual, to 
exactly duplicate. He is wholly unable to write a 
continuous history of himself farther back than the 
days of his servitude on American farms. So far as 
his record is intelligible to him and to us, he is like 
some Adamic race, numerous but weak, that sudden- 
ly appears in the chronicles of history in Alabama. 

In a consideration of his past, from the beginning 
of slavery to his emancipation, let us remember that 
all negroes were not of the same tribal stock." 8 There 
were different slave markets in Africa, and the slaves 
brought thence varied in size and color and necessarily 
in shape of head. One who is adept in anthropology 
would need only a passing visit through the rural sec- 
tions of Alabama to verify this conclusion. And just 
as we find temperamental differences among the 
Scotch, the Irish, and the English, so do we find tem- 
peramental differences and aptitudes between the 
Sudanese and the Bantus. 

Besides the differences which are manifest so far 
as the tribal stocks are concerned, there is another 
class which is ranked as a negro. This type is known 
as the mulatto, which has a mixture of white blood 
with the negro. In the United States this class more 
than doubled in number from 1890 to 1900. The in- 
crease of the mulatto for that period in Montana was 
6.1 per cent, the increase in the District of Colum- 
bia was 8.1 per cent, while the increase in Alabama 
was only 5.3 per cent. The rule is that the mulatto 
makes a more desirable domestic servant and more 
capable leader in social, educational, and religious af- 

26 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 121. 



The Past History. 21 

fairs ; while the blacks are preferable for purely mus- 
cle work. 27 From a eugenic standpoint the mixing 
of the African stocks may have proved a benefit. But 
the mulatto is not a tribal stock. Society classes him 
as a negro, nevertheless. Professor Shannon makes 
the following observation on this point : "The negro 
C black) is, as a rule, indifferent to educational privi- 
leges, as he is toward everything else requiring wise 
forethought and sustained effort. So while we find 
much of the heavier work of the South done by him, 
we find the mulatto employed in such occupations as 
call him from the rural districts into the cities and 
towns. . . ." ! So while mulattoes are negroes 
socially, are they negroes intellectually? Some say 
they are ; 2i ' by some they are distinguished. 30 

This is the simple story which leads up to a con- 
sideration of the negro as an economic factor. It is 
necessary to know the incidents which led up to his 
freedom, which is the beginning of his economic life. 
He had certainly a place in the economic scheme of 
Alabama before the surrender, but such as was com- 
mon to the horse or other possessions which acted 
when acted upon, possessing no self-directing choice. 
Historically, then, his economic independence, his 
economic power, begins with the opportunity and the 
unrestrained right of self-control. 

2T J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 
122; A. H. Shannon, Racial Integrity and Other Features, etc., 
PP- 34. 35 I A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Prob- 
lem, p. 426. 

28 A. H. Shannon, Racial Integrity, etc., pp. 34, 35. 

29 M. N. Work, Negro Yearbook, 1917, pp. 283-296. 

30 A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 
425-439- 



CHAPTER III. 

The Present Location. 

There are in Alabama 908,282 negroes, or 45 per 
cent of the entire population. 1 This count includes 
the pure negro and the mulatto. In this chapter no 
distinction will be made between the pure type and 
the mulatto, but both groups will be treated as one. 
Their increase from 1900 to 19 10 was 9.8 per cent. 
One hundred and fifty-six thousand six hundred and 
three of the total negro population in 19 10 were in 
towns and cities, and seven hundred and fifty-one 
thousand six hundred and seventy-nine were in the 
rural districts. 

Of those living in cities, we observe these facts 
concerning the sexes, since we will later consider 
them as they are represented in gainful occupations : 

ALABAMA. 

City. Males. Females. 

Birmingham 25,662 26,643 

Montgomery 8,293 1 1,029 

Mobile io,344 12,419 

For entire State 447.794 460,448 

This translated into other terms means that there 
is a surplus of negro women over negro men both 
throughout the State and also in three of the largest 
cities in the State. Whenever negroes are found in 
cities at all, they usually form a large proportion of 
the inhabitants. In the cities mentioned above they 
make this per cent of the total : 

Birmingham 394 

Montgomery 50.7 

Mobile 44-2 

thirteenth Census of the United States, Vol. II., p. 41, 
Population of Alabama. 



The Present Location. 23 

Including these exceptions in race concentration, 
the negro is as yet on the farm. Later figures will 
show that nearly four-fifths dwell in the country. 

ALABAMA. 2 
White. 1890. 1900. 1910. 

Urban 82,574 1 18,499 213,756 

Rural 751.144 882,653 1,015,076 

Total 1,228,832 

Negro. 1890. 1900. 1910. 

Urban 69,607 98,154 156,603 

Rural 608,882 729J53 751,679 

Total 908,282 

Per Cent of the Total Population. 

White. 1S90. 1900. 1910. 

Urban 54-2 547 577 

Rural 55-3 54-8 57-4 

Negro. 1890. 1900. 1910. 

Urban 45.7 45.3 42-3 

Rural 447 45-2 42.5 

The actual numerical gain for whites for this 
twenty years was 395,144, and the gain among the 
negroes for the same period was 229,793. 

The Twelfth Census 3 showed that Alabama was 90 
per cent rural and only 10 per cent urban. In 1900 
she had no city with more than 100,000 inhabitants. 
There were 5.9 cities with a population ranging be- 
tween 25,000 and 100,000 and 1.4 cities having be- 
tween 8,000 and 25,000 inhabitants. 

2 Figures taken from the Thirteenth Census of the United 
States, 1900, Vol. II., p. 41, Populations. 

'Twelfth Census of the United States (1900), Vol. I., pp. 
24, 25. 



24 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Economic reasons draw men from one country to 
another or from one part of a country to another. 
The white man has migrated when fresh lands were 
needed, when mines were discovered, when rivers 
were opened for commerce, when textile industries 
called for skilled labor, when the demand for gold was 
great, and when a variety of other economic needs 
and opportunities presented themselves. But the 
negro remains where he is. Only 7.5 per cent of 
negroes are born outside of the State's boundary. 
As a matter of fact, 82.7 per cent of them live in the 
country, while only 17.3 per cent are in urban life. 
However, for the twenty years next preceding 1910 
the urban gain was 10 per cent, while the rural de- 
crease was 7 per cent. This rural decrease was al- 
most in every case found to be in the "Black Belt" 
section of the State. In eleven counties negroes form 
75 per cent or more of the population, and in twenty- 
three counties they form less than 25 per cent. (The 
decennium ending in 1910.) 

The first attempt in the history of that people at 
migration occurred in the autumn of 1916. The De- 
partment of Labor is quoted in the Birmingham Age- 
Herald 4, of November 3, 191 6, as estimating that not 
fewer than 6,000 negroes went North. The exodus 
was the result of crop failures and the promise of 
fancy wages by labor agents from Northern indus- 
tries. Negroes show less tendency to migrate from 
country to city than any other class of population. 3 
They remain an agricultural people. 

Birmingham Age-Herald, November 3, 1916, p. 1. 
6 M. B. Hammond, Cotton Culture in the South, p. 183. 



The Present Location. 25 

Largely the thought prevails that the negro is to 
be found everywhere throughout the State. But his- 
tory shows 6 that only one-fourth of the South was in- 
terested in slavery. Indeed, nonslaveholders outnum- 
bered the slaveholders in the proportion of three to 
one. To take an illustration of this point we may use 
the State of Georgia. "In Georgia 150 barons com- 
manded the labor of nearly 6,000 and held sway over 
farms with 90,000 acres of tilled land, valued even 
in times of cheap soil at $3,000,000. Twenty thousand 
bales of cotton went annually to England and New 
England. Men that came there bankrupt made 
money and grew rich. In a single decade the cotton 
output increased over fourfold, and the value of land 
was tripled." 7 So in Alabama, in 1850 for example, 
slaves were in proportion to freemen as three to 
four, and less than 7 per cent of the white popula- 
tion owned the 335,000 slaves. 8 This helps to ac- 
count for the fact that there is not a uniform dis- 
tribution of them over the State, for they do not 
cover the State's territory as the waters cover the sea. 
There are in Cullman County 533 negroes ; there 
are 54 in Winston County ; there are an equal num- 
ber of whites and negroes in Pickens County ; in 
Hale County the negroes furnish five-sixths of the 
population ; in Green County, which might with equal 
propriety be called black, the negroes furnish seven- 
eighths of the populacion. They are found in large 
numbers in the district called the "Black Belt," a strip 

6 J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Resources of the South. 
7 W. E. B. DuBois, The Soul of Black Folk, p. 123. 
8 William G. Brown, The Lower South in American His- 
tory, p. 34. 



26 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

of country running across the central-south of Ala- 
bama, composed of dark, calcareous dirt, incompa- 
rably adapted to the cultivation of "King Cotton."" 
It is in this zone that they are on trial. Here they are 
born ; here they must be educated or in large numbers 
remain in ignorance; here they must gain the victory 
or suffer defeat; here they must demonstrate to the 
world what they can accomplish under favorable con- 
ditions, assisted by foreign philanthropy, State aid, 
and race pride. 

"William G. Brown, The Lower South in American His- 
tory, p. 25. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Meaning of Social Differences. 

The following words are taken from the New De- 
catur Advertiser 1 of April 25, 1916: "A number of 
negroes have been warned to leave the town of Cull- 
man. For many years Cullman has been a strictly 
'white' town. Until recently no negroes were al- 
lowed to stay overnight in Cullman. On the water 
tank is a sign in large letters : 'Nigger, don't let the 
sun go down on you here. Recently a number of 
negroes who were engaged in railroad work have 
drifted into Cullman, and some of them have re- 
mained. Now they are warned to leave town, as their 
work is over." 

Many things which a negro might do, as far as pos- 
sibilities are concerned, are closed occupations. His 
possibilities are in a very real sense conditioned on 
social grounds. It is claimed that the negro has lost 
ground because the white man will now do what the 
negro does and will do it better. 2 The Southern 
white man will work side by side with a negro, as in 
carpentry, and never feel that he endangers his stand- 
ing in the community. Yet the social line is one of 
the determining factors in the economic field. It 
helps to determine what field he shall enter and what 
sphere he shall occupy in certain given fields. The 
operation of this social law must receive its proper 

'The New Decatur Advertiser, Albany, Ala., April 25, 1916. 
•A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 
157 et seq.; also pp. 167 and 177. 



28 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

emphasis. Segregation is the order of the day in 
nearly every kind of business. No negroes may ride in 
a sleeping car nor buy a ticket at the white window 
nor sit in a white waiting room except as a servant 
to some white person ; he may not attend a school 
for white children nor teach in the same; he may not 
marry outside of his race, the penalty for which is 
an imprisonment of two to seven years. 

These facts of a social status are no more binding 
than the hard facts of employment. No negro is an 
engineer (railroad) in Alabama, nor conductor, nor 
section foreman, nor clerk in a store, nor policeman, 
nor mine inspector, nor tippleman at the mines, nor 
road overseer, and a multitude of like occupations. 

In the Negro Artisan 3 it is stated that there are in 
Alabama 4,591 negroes engaged in skilled and semi- 
skilled railroad work. We look in vain to find any 
who are ticket agents, express agents, telegraph 
agents, trainmasters, supervisors, superintendents of 
the bridge department,* etc. We are told that there 
are in the State 3,687 negroes engaged as skilled or 
semiskilled miners. Three years' experience in a 
mining town did not bring such information to me. 
It may be true if the word "skilled" means only the 
ability to use the pick and the power to mine coal 
with ease and profit. 

Perhaps it would help our understanding if we 
should analyze, for example, the professional class 
as illustrating what is meant by "skilled and semi- 
skilled." There are listed 1,778 negroes who belong 

3 The Negro Artisan, Atlanta Publication, 1902. 
4 M. S. Evans, Blacks and Whites in the Southern States, 
p. 101. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 29 

to the professional class. Closer study shows that 
1,114 °f these are ministers, 479 are teachers, 55 are 
physicians, 47 are teachers of music, etc. To say 
"professional" class, then, has a meaning when thus 
defined and understood. So "skilled or semiskilled" 
does not necessarily mean intellectual agility. 

All positions, even on railroads, however, are not 
closed to negroes. They may become firemen on 
railroads or for stationary engines as freely as they 
become barbers, hotel porters, draymen, or any un- 
skilled laborers elsewhere. The females of the race 
almost without exception become cooks, washer- 
women, maids, and nurses. White servants are very 
little used in Alabama. Indeed, it is almost impossible 
for a white woman to secure a position as a servant 
in a home, because it is a negro's job. In the Negro 
Yearbook 5 the statement is made that there were only 
twelve kinds of occupations open to negroes in 1863, 
while in 1913 they were found in seventy kinds of 
business. Compared with themselves, then, they 
seem to have advanced. But the whites have not re- 
mained in a static condition during this period from 
1863 to 1913. It is difficult to tell whether this in- 
crease is greater or less than that made by the whites 
proportionately. The number of different kinds of 
avenues open to negroes in 1890 in Alabama was 
136. Among them were barbers, undertakers, bank- 
ers, grocers, hotel managers, etc., and dealers in hard- 
ware, general merchandise, and fuel. 8 

The discrimination against the negro is not an un- 

5 Negro Yearbook, 1914, 1915, pp. 277-279. 
"Negro Yearbook, 1913, pp. 203-206; United States Census. 
1890, Occupations. 



30 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

mixed question. Since the Civil War the negro has 
been, theoretically at least, free. Yet we know that, 
while he is legally free, he is economically dependent. 
Hedged in by limitations which arise from the fact 
of color and previous condition of servitude, there 
are some privileges of a social type which are closed 
to him. But much of the social unrest is based on a 
false premise. Why is he not permitted to teach in 
a school for white children? The separation in 
schools is the result of these conclusions, according 
to Professor Hart: 7 (a) That the negro has an evil 
influence over white children. For whatever it may 
be worth, let us quote a line from an article 8 generally 
accepted as true by all investigators : "Their morals 
are unspeakably bad. In one county in Mississippi 
three obtained license for marriage when twelve hun- 
dred should have done so." (b) A mixture would 
break down the separation necessary to prevent social 
equality and amalgamation. ("In a Boston colored 
magazine some months since Augusta P. Eaton 9 gives 
an account of her settlement work among negroes in 
that city. In describing relations where colored and 
white families live in contact, she says : 'The great 
bond of fellowship is never fully established. There 
is tolerance, but I have found few cases of friendly 
intimacy.'") (c) The blacks are "niggers." (Even 
this charge is far from being confined to the South. 
"The Bulletin of the Intermunicipal Committee on 

7 A. B. Hart, The Southern South, p. 313. 

8 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 
198. 

"A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 
236. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 31 

Household Research is authority for the statement 
that the Boston Reform League has been unable to 
secure an equal chance for colored girls in obtaining 
employment and cannot secure places for more than 
half who apply." 10 A negro man who was "neat in 
his person and good-looking and highly recommended 
. . . answered in all two hundred advertisements, 
but he was invariably refused the position simply 
because he was a colored man." 11 

Color is not the only thing that closes the door of 
opportunity to the black man. Some are simply not 
qualified for leadership and positions of responsi- 
bility. "Few people, black or white, realize that in 
the negro race as it exists to-day in America we have 
representatives of nearly every state of civilization, 
from that of the primitive man (African) to the 
highest that modern life and science have achieved." 12 

"Domestic and personal service is regarded as the 
sphere proper to the negroes." 13 This is because "they 
seem able to develop the sense of energy, purpose, and 
stability." 14 

At the present time committees on common car- 
riers 15 are petitioning the railroad companies of the 

10 A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 
236. xl Idem>. 

12 B. T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. II., p. 
189. 

13 M. S. Evans, Blacks and Whites in the Southern States, 
p. 101 ; Negro Yearbook, p. 281. 

14 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 103. 

"Annual Conference Report (Committee on Common Car- 
riers), 1910, A. M. E. Church of Alabama, J. W. Alstock, 
Bishop; The South Mobilizing for Social Service (1913), P- 
417. 



2)2 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

State to furnish better accommodations for the col- 
ored people. They certainly do not have the com- 
forts accorded to the whites, and this difference of 
comfort of body and security of life furnishes a basis 
for a plea for better accommodations while travel- 
ing. But this remains to be said : The Pullman Com- 
pany would lose money on every run of its cars, since 
the negro traveling public is infinitesimally small. So 
the railroad company does make a distinction, but 
the discrimination is in part a matter of economics; 
it simply would not pay. 

"Few blacks are engaged in manufacturing because 
of the prejudice of the white worker and because of 
their own lack of efficiency. In trucking and in rail- 
road construction they furnish a large portion of the 
unskilled labor, but rarely attain positions of respon- 
sibility." 19 

Again, the little log cabin was a common type of 
house which was formerly erected for the renting 
class and the wage earners. Here we find this also 
to be a question of economics as well as a question 
of social differences. This has its parallel in North- 
ern cities, in Western cities, in Eastern cities, as well 
as in the South. The tabulated results of the "hous- 
ing problem" students, as well as magazine articles, 
show that Greeks, Italians, Poles, Scandinavians, etc., 
live in the tenement districts of the great cities. This 
is true, not because they are from foreign countries, 
but because they are not able to bear the financial 
burdens necessary to living in the other and more de- 
sirable sections of the city. 

16 The South in the Building of the Nation, Vol. VI., p. 44. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 33 

These several citations are given in order to modify 
or qualify some conclusions which might be erro- 
neously reached; for while not all of the inequalities 
are due to the negro's ebony hue, there are numer- 
ous rights and privileges whose boundaries are ir- 
revocably set by social differences. Indeed, just at 
this time the Federal government is separating the 
races that are employed by the government at Wash- 
ington. 

One has called attention to a threefold division as 
existing among the whites of the South prior to 
1865. 17 It consisted of the slave owner par excellent, 
who owned many slaves of alluvial lands; the yeoman, 
who owned a few slaves and generally worked along 
with them in the fields; and, lastly, the poor white 
man, who had no slaves and was forced to occupy 
the poorer lands. This is a very helpful division to 
remember, for nothing could be farther from truth 
than to say that the Southern white held in contempt 
the negro. The most marvelous instances of affec- 
tion of the negro for the white man or vice versa 
could be easily multiplied. Many cases could be 
cited which would parallel the love of Jonathan 
and David or that of Damon and Pythias. Not even 
in the fiery days of bloodshed and fratricidal strife 
did the slave as a rule turn against the master. And 
when the negro was given his freedom, affection re- 
mained on both sides as a constant factor. When in 
the course of human events the negro died, the "old 



1T G. S. Callender, Economic History of the United States, 
p. 811; E. C. Hayes, Introduction to the Study of Sociology, 
P- 32. 

3 



34 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

master" always saw to it that he had a decent burial. 
It is still a custom among the white people whose 
parents were slave owners to pay tribute to the life 
of every "faithful" negro. There is a large evidence, 
therefore, that the Southerner as such in a wholesale, 
universal way does not insolently maltreat the negro. 
But, alas for the negro and for social righteousness ! 
this class is diminishing, and the yeoman and the 
poor whites have slipped forward into governmental 
affairs — "the new king who l$new not Joseph." No 
proof has been brought forward incriminating the 
Southern aristocrat, the erstwhile slave owner, as en- 
dangering the morals or the physical safety of the 
black. 

Only the uninformed think that the political power 
of the past rested in the hands of the aristocracy. 
"Poor whites were more domineering than the slave 
owners. They had political equality with the slave 
owners, but were physically and mentally no better 
than the slaves." 18 "The race problem is vastly less 
perplexed when white people deal with negroes, 
whether educated or uneducated, than when ignorant 
white men deal with either class of negroes. 1 " 

A large contribution in an economic way is made 
in an unwilling service — that is to say, as a result of 
a conviction of crime. This contribution is made by 
a small part numerically of that race, but its results 
run up far into the millions of dollars. This money 



181 



8 J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 
344; J. M. Moore, The South of To-Day, p. 31. 

"William G. Brown, The Lower South in American His- 
tory, p. 270. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 35 

is not paid to him nor to his family, but to the State 
or county. 

The Alabama convicts were employed in the early 
seventies (1870) in railway-building and were so 
badly treated that they were taken from the control 
of the lessees, and the State farm was the next to 
receive them. Then in 1882 the convicts were put 
into the hands of fourteen lessees, as the farm plan 
had failed, but subleasing was prohibited except with 
the consent of the warden and governor. This lease 
is still in vogue in a modified form. 20 

From 1906 to 1910 there were 2,392 convicts re- 
maining in prison, while 2,735 had been paroled. 
Now, assuming that this 2,392 was typical for the 
quadrennium, we have: Whites, 416; negroes, 1,976. 
For the same period the county convicts numbered : 
Whites, 88; negroes, 636. I did not investigate the 
status of municipal prisoners, but a first-hand knowl- 
edge — personal knowledge — of three cities ranging 
from 10,000 to 130,000 inhabitants confirmed the 
statement that all street improvement, street-cleaning, 
sewer work, and the handling of garbage was done 
by convict or prison labor. 

Now, deducting the money necessary for court 
cost, transportation of the convict, and all other dis- 
bursements, the net profit to the State was cut down 
considerably. But withal there was a net gain to the 
State of $1,706,695.87. Since there were incarcerated 
four negroes to one white man, we have a gross earn- 
ing from the negro of $2,205,088, or a net earning of 

20 The South in the Building of the Nation, Vol. VI., p. 
43; Board of Inspectors of Convicts, 1910-14, p. 52, 



36 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

$1,185,719 for the quadrennium of 1906 to 1910. For 
the four years after 1910 the figures are, for negroes, 
2,252 imprisoned, a net earning of $1,880,420. There 
were of the whites for this same term, 357 in prison, 
a net earning of $3o8,284. :n This calculation reckons 
that the same convicts remained for four successive 
years, which is not true. At most the estimate is not 
far wrong; for while some were paroled, other re- 
cruits were added. The same wage is required by 
the State for negroes as for whites. The difference 
is noticed not through the color line here, but by the 
recommendation of the physician who examines each 
prisoner and classes him in the rank of A, B, C, etc., 
according to his ability to mine coal, if he happens to 
be sent to that kind of labor. 

The total gross receipts from all prisoners for 1910- 
14 weVe $5,107,644, five-sixths of which were made 
by the negro. This amount was more than enough 
to buy all the hogs, sheep, and goats in the whole 
State, with enough left over to buy 260 farms contain- 
ing forty acres each at $11.65 per acre. 22 This is the 
average price per acre as given by the government 
report. Stated differently, eight quadrennial terms of 
negro imprisonment would buy all the land that the 
negroes throughout the State owned in igioJ" 
These men work in the mines, at sawmills, on farms, 
in turpentine works, and in stove works. 

The State chaplain, Rev. J. A. Jenkins, stated that 
flogging was the cause of many deaths./ Dr. J. M. 

21 Board of Inspectors of Convicts, 1910-14, p. 52. 
"Thirteenth Census of the United States, Vol. VI., pp. 18, 

25- 

2i Idem, p. 32. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 37 

Austin, physician-inspector, in his recommendation 
to the Board of Inspectors, suggested the abolition of 
whipping on the naked. 24 

If all the years of service demanded from negro 
convicts could be placed in one life, that person would 
have been born when Abraham was, and he still 
would be a minor. On the minimum basis the num- 
ber of years of servitude is not less than 63,734. 

A man may be apprehended for crime, and because 
of the congested condition of the docket his trial may 
be postponed for a year or more. This time of im- 
prisonment is not deducted from the sentence which 
may be given for some petty offense. This is a de- 
cided economic loss to society specifically and gen- 
erally." 5 

Under the fee system the sheriff comes in for a 
good amount of graft under the Alabama law. It is 
to the financial interest of such an official to have on 
hand a large number of prisoners. The sheriff of 
Jefferson County alone receives $10x3,503. 76" from 
the pernicious fee system in a quadrennium in feed- 
ing the prisoners. The legislature makes ample pro- 
vision for these unfortunates, but as a matter of prac- 
tical experience it is seen that they get only two meals 
a day, which cost on an average five cents each. Not 
many citizens speak against this inhumanity. It is 
accepted as a part of prison life by the prisoners, 
while the aforesaid officer grows rich at the expense 
of the physical well-being of the incarcerated. Of 
course the State in a way bears the expense, but in the 

24 Board of Inspectors of Convicts (1910-14), p. 35- 

25 Idem. 

"Special Report of Prison Inspector, 1914. PP- 6 > 9, I0 - 99- 



38 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

last analysis the convict feeds himself, the lawyer, the 
sheriff, and gives tips to the State at a lively rate. 

The largest single charges against all prisoners of 
the State in numerical order are: 27 Murder in the 
second degree, murder in the first degree, grand lar- 
ceny, violating the prohibition law, and burglary. 
The report does not set forth the author of the 
specific crimes, whether white or fclack, but we may 
surmise that certainly the negroes have a large rep- 
resentation, as there are so many more of them in 
prison than there are of the whites. Ordinarily one 
would judge from newspaper accounts that the South- 
erner resorts more to lynching than to the duly con- 
stituted authority of the law. The one crime from 
which white men outrun the processes of the law is 
rape. From 1910 to 1914 there were twenty-eight 
such cases, while murder in the second degree 
amounted f o 448. 28 In Alabama in 19 15 there weie 
nine persons lynched. This form of insubordination 
is nearly always directed toward the negro, though 
occasionally a white man is mobbed. A movement is 
now in process to prevent lynching. 20 This move- 
ment has the hearty support of the descendants of 
the slave owners, and it is reaching them and all per- 
sons who are receiving education, but fails to receive 
attention from those who are likely to commit such 
outrages. One has pointed out the fact that even in 
a trial the negro is tried by a court in which he has 

"Board of Inspectors of Convicts (1910-14), pp. 171, 172. 

2B Idem, p. 177. 

29 Lynching, Removing Its Causes (W. D. Weatherford, 
Ph.D.), an address; J. M. Moore, The South To-Day, p. 
152; The Southern Sociological Congress (1913), p. 418. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 39 

no voice as to its processes or constitution. If he 
gets justice, then the white man gets less than jus- 
tice; or if the white man gets justice, then the negro 
gets more than justice. 30 Any lawyer in Alabama will 
tell you that the same sentence is not always given to 
the negro as to the white man. (In Jackson, Miss., 
in January, 19 17, an investigation was made by the 
Young Men's Business Club of "persecutions" which 
were publicly charged against a constable. The state- 
ment was made in the Jackson Daily Nezus that the 
negroes had an endless dread of certain constables 
who arrested negroes for all sorts of petty offenses 
just for the sake of the fee connected with the ar- 
rest. This is not new to men who study social jus- 
tice or rather social injustice. A similar line of 
procedure could be very easily duplicated in Ala- 
bama.) 

Race antipathy seems to be instinctive. Every- 
where there is race prejudice against the Jew. The 
yellow people speak of us as "foreign devils." In 
Liberia, where the black man lives and governs, we 
find that suffrage rests on the fact of color; the suf- 
fragist must be a black man, and he must have this 
qualification before he can own property — real estate. 
Foreigners, with the consent of the government, may 
become the owners of property. Since there is "hu- 
manity" in all of us, it depends on who we are and 
where we are as to what shall be our attitude in the 
matter of discrimination. So, then, let us not believe 
that the attitude of the Southern whites toward the 
Southern blacks is without parallel and historical 

S0 M. S. Evans, Blacks and Whites in the Southern States, 
P- 159. 



40 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

precedent, for such attitude has characterized the be- 
havior of every people in history. 31 Yea, there are 
social differences among the whites themselves. The 
cotton factory employee will not worship in the rich 
man's church which is situated on a boulevard, nor 
will the man of great financial control find a con- 
genial church home in the mission district. Some 
ardent social workers believe that the elevation of the 
negro will never be an accomplished fact until all 
social barriers between the whites and the blacks have 
been removed. But the more thoughtful and serious- 
minded Southerner feels that the obliteration of so- 
cial distinction will only shift, but will not settle, the 
problem of the negro's welfare. 3 ' 

It is generally recognized that in the development 
of production there are certain distinct, obvious ad- 
vances made. 83 The most primitive, perhaps, is the 
hunting and fishing stage, where but little capital is 
required. The next economic advance is said to be 
the pastoral, where the animal is domesticated for 
the service or raised for the feeding and clothing of 
the nomadic tribes. The third advance is known as 
the agricultural, where the tribes settle permanently, 
raising plants as well as animals. It is in this stage 
that slavery in Alabama first appears to be an eco- 
nomic gain in the production of wealth. The fourth 
stage in this evolution is that of manufacture and 

31 M. N. Work, Negro Yearbook (1914-15), p. 69. 

32 A modern instance of group difference is seen in the 
California-Japanese controversy in President Roosevelt's ad- 
ministration. 

33 C. J. Bullock, The Introduction to the Study of Eco- 
nomics, p. 163 et seq. 



The Meaning of Social Differences. 41 

commerce. This stage widens the possibilities of each 
locality by allowing it to raise what is best suited to 
its environment and by exchange to secure other 
wants. The last stage thus far attained in Alabama 
is the industrial age. With the first two of these eras 
the negro in Alabama had nothing to do and but lit- 
tle with the industrial. 34 He is in the agricultural era ; 
as will be seen from the following table : 

Agriculture 279,508 

Professional 2,755 

Domestic 83,131 

Trade and transportation 13.872 

Merchants (wholesale) 3 

Teachers (male) 479 

Teachers (female) 905 

It is seen that the negro is still on the farm, where 
social distinctions operate less violently than any- 
where else. Here he has larger freedom for the exer- 
cising of his natural gifts than we customarily think. 88 

It does seem a wrong to society that difference in 
social stratification should help to send men to prison 
life and labor, fifty per cent of whom were between 
twenty and thirty years of age and two-thirds of 
whom were between fifteen and thirty years of age. 
For in the days when he ought to be in the prime of 
making and saving, the negro is in prison and is bear- 
ing the burdens of the State and county. 38 Also it 



34 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, 
Chapter X., p. 133; G. F. Callender, Economic History of 
the United States, Chapter XV. 

35 M. N. Work, Negro Yearbook, 1913, p. 203; 1914-15, P- 
278; 19 1 7, p. 295. 

38 Board of Prison Inspectors (1910-14), p. 172. 



42 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

may really interfere with one's natural gifts to be 
forced by the caste system to be largely doomed to 
certain kinds of remunerative employment. Yet by 
no means are the failures of the negro to be laid to 
the account of the Southern whites. Because he some- 
times lives perilously near the line of subsistence 
may mean that when removed from restraint or com- 
pulsion, from oversight and supervision, his energies 
are willfully withheld. Let us close this chapter with 
a quotation from a well-known author and race lead- 
er: "In 1910, while traveling in South Carolina, I 
met many leading negroes of that State and of North 
Carolina, and in almost every case these prominent 
men stated that the success which they had achieved 
was due to the friendship of some white man." 37 

37 B. T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. II., pp. 
36-40; also The Outlook, in Advertising Department, Septem- 
ber 13, 1916. 



CHAPTER V. 
The .State's Resources. 

An enthusiastic writer in the special edition of 
the Montgomery Advertiser 1 says that the piney 
woodlands have been cleared of a considerable 
amount of timber and that these lands have been set 
out in pecans, oranges, and vegetables. Almost every 
fruit known to horticulture will grow within the 
boundary of the State. The peach crop of 191 5 was 
not as large as that of Georgia, but commanded a 
higher price on the market. It was also noted that 
Alabama was the only State in the Union save one, 
Arkansas, that increased her production of peaches 
over the preceding year. The pecan propaganda is 
taking hold in the State. Pecans will grow anywhere, 
but the larger orchards are in the Southern counties. 
Thousands of acres are planted in pecans, and the 
crop will run into millions of dollars. The pecans 
differ from peaches, apples, and pears in that they 
are fairly regular in fruiting and are not so suscepti- 
ble to attacks from insects and disease. 

We usually think of Florida or California when 
speaking of oranges. In the past six years over six 
thousand orange trees have been planted in Alabama, 
and she leads all other States in the shipment of 
Satsuma oranges. 

Strawberries, like most other fruits, will grow from 
the northern boundary of the State to the southern 

The Montgomery Advertiser, Special Edition, April 16, 
1915, article on "Fruits." 2 Idem. 



44 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

extremity. Hence the strawberry season is of a good 
duration. The yield for 1910 3 was 1,848,537 quarts, 
or a minimum of $277,280. 

The period for picking strawberries is April and 
May. The season for peaches, apples, and pears can 
be arranged from the very early varieties which ripen 
in May and June to the late autumn crops. 

The pecan nut is gathered only in the autumn, and 
then the time may be at one's pleasure. 

The census report 4 gives a more specific account 
of property valuation in regard to animal industry 
than it does to fruit valuation, so far as race posses- 
sion is concerned. Throughout the State there are 
932,428 cattle; 271,468 are owned by the negroes. 
Their value is $13,469,626; the number which the 
negroes own are estimated at $3,864,648. 

All horses are valued at $13,651,284; those owned 
by negroes are estimated to be worth $3,590,989. All 
mules are valued at $31,577,217; those owned by 
negroes are valued at $10,873,562. 

All swine are valued at $4,356,520; those owned 
by negroes are valued at $1,240,019. 

Sheep are valued at $299,919; those owned by ne- 
groes are valued at $8,520. Goats are valued at $76,- 
261 ; those owned by negroes are valued at $7,545. 

The total production from all poultry for Alabama 
for 1910 was 22,235,000 dozen of eggs, which were 
valued at $3,762,000. These figures also show that 

thirteenth Census Report of the United States, Vol. VI., 
p. 46, Agriculture. 

i Idenv, Vol. VI., p. 32, Agriculture. 



The State's Resources. 45 

there were 1,467,000 fowls, 5 which were valued at 
$3,i68,ooo. 6 

The 1902 census 7 says that the coal and iron de- 
velopment did not begin until after 1870, though for 
more than a third of a century coal was shipped down 
the river on flatboats from Tuscaloosa to Mobile and 
sold for $1.00 to $1.50 per barrel. The coal coun- 
ties are Bibb, Blount, Cullman, Etowah, Fayette, Jef- 
ferson, Marion, St. Clair, Shelby, Tuscaloosa, Walker, 
and Winston. Of these, Blount, Etowah, Jefferson, 
Marion, Tuscaloosa, Walker, and Winston are the 
chief centers 8 of development, for the strata vary 
from a few inches to one hundred and fifteen feet. 
This is one of the richest coal fields in the world, 
having an estimated tonnage of 108,384,000,000. 
This would furnish enough coal to supply the world 
for more than two hundred and seventy years. 

The total amount invested in capital in mining 1 " for 
1909 was $84,516,007. There were employed in the 
mines — coal, iron, and limestone — as wage earners 
30,795 persons, receiving $14,276,707. This is a large 
sum to be paid to less than one-seventh of the popu- 
lation of Jefferson County alone. 11 There were seven 



'Thirteenth Census Report of the United States, Vol. VI., 
p. 25, Agriculture. 

6 The Montgomery Advertiser gives larger figures, as it 
gives more recent information. 

'Report on Mines and Quarries, United States Census for 
1902, p. 167. 

*Idem. 

"Alabama Geological Survey, Report on Warrior Coal 
Basin, 1899, P- 4- 

"Thirteenth Census of the United States, Supplement for 
Alabama, p. 680. ^Idem, p. 579. 



46 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

hundred and sixty-six salaried officers, superintendents, 
and managers, who received 12 annually $1,688,683. 

These industries are developing very rapidly, as 
may be seen from these figures : In 1880 there were 
n,ooo 13 tons of coal mined; in 1910, 16,111,000. In 
1880 there were 11,350 tons of iron mined; in 1910, 
4,801,000. Of course dolomite, sandstone, clay, sil- 
ver, graphite, gold, etc., are also found, but the chief 
products yet are coal, iron, and steel, so far as reve- 
nue is concerned. 

The value of manufactured products in 1909 was 
$i45,962,ooo. 14 Then the number of manufacturing- 
establishments was 3,398, the chief of which were: 1 ' 
Coke, cotton-ginning, cotton goods, flour and grist 
mills, leather, oil, cotton seed and cake, lumber 
and timber products, etc. These establishments gave 
employment to 81,792 persons during the year 1909, 
72,148 of whom were wage earners. There was paid 
out in salaries and wages $33,849,000. In Alabama 
in 1900 there was invested less than $75,000,000 in 
manufactories which gave employment to about 60,- 
000 wage earners, 16 or less than three per cent of the 
wage earners in the State. Also in 1910 there were 
72,000 wage earners in manufacturing, as follows : 
Iron and steel blast furnaces, 3,787; lumber and tim- 
ber, 22,409; cotton goods, 12,731; cars and general 

"Thirteenth Census of the United States, Supplement for 
Alabama, p. 682. 

"Special Edition of Montgomery Advertiser, Mineral 
Wealth. 

"Twelfth Census of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 46, 
Agriculture. 

"International Encyclopedia (Alabama), Vol. I., p. 251. 

ls Twelfth Census of the United States, Vol, IX., p. 20, 



The State 's Resources. 47 

construction, 6,308. The value of all manufactured 
products for 1909 in Alabama was $145,961,638. As 
a matter of comparison we give the figures for farm 
property 17 in 1910 as $370,138,429 and the value of 
farm products as amounting to $144,287,347. 

Perhaps the lumber and timber industry comes next 
to the mining interests of iron and steel, including 
their preparation for commercial purposes. 18 The 
vast importance of lumber is well illustrated by the 
fact that more than fifty mills continued to operate 
in the Tuscaloosa district during the depression of 
1915-16. 19 

"There yet remain large areas heavily and richly 
timbered, the forests yielding cedar, poplar, hickory, 
gum, and cypress, besides all the varieties of pine and 
oak which grow in this latitude. Though sawmills 
have been busy along the railroads since their con- 
struction, there are many thousands of acres of vir- 
gin timber still standing." 20 This may be illustrated 
by the Kaul Lumber Co., which is located at Tusca- 
loosa, in Tuscaloosa County. This company has 70,- 
000 acres of timber; and though the mill cuts 175,000 
feet a day, they claim to have enough timber to keep 
them busy for thirty years. Another forest just west 
of the Warrior River from Tuscaloosa is another belt 
of 23,000 acres of long-leaf pine which has just been 
sold for $750,000. 



"Twelfth Census of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 46. 
"International Encyclopedia (Alabama), Vol. I., p. 251. 
"Montgomery Advertiser, article "Kaul Lumber Company," 
April, 1916. 
30 Idem. 



48 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Besides these lumber mills, there are in and about 
Tuscaloosa such other industries as planing mills, 
cooperage plants, a shuttle plant, a porch column 
plant, etc. It might be added that the State has 
abundant water supply and power which makes it 
possible to ship coal, lumber, and other heavy freight 
to Mobile. The Warrior River by a system of locks 
is open from the Birmingham District to the Tom- 
bigbee River, thence to Mobile. A large amount of 
cotton as well as other freight is thus transported. 
This has reduced the freight rate twenty per cent. In 
addition to the Alabama River and her tributaries 
and other navigable streams which afford cheap 
transportation for other sections of the State, Bir- 
mingham is reached by every trunk line railroad in 
the South. 

Not only is there a means of carrying on commer- 
cial relations with the world, but there is a growing 
improvement in communication with all interior points 
of the State. The good roads movement has met with 
enthusiastic approbation from citizen and legislator. 
So that for the year 191 5 the several counties appro- 
priated for good roads and bridges the sum of $3.- 
371,985.23. Montgomery County alone has 600 miles 
of macadam roads, and there are in that county 176 
farmers who have automobiles. 21 

At the present time 22 a little more than sixty-three 
per cent of the land surface is in cultivation. Owing 
to the condition of soil and climate, every item of 

"Montgomery Advertiser, article "Good Roads," April, 
1916. 

"Montgomery Advertiser, Special Edition, April 27, 1916, 
Agriculture. 



The State 's Resources. 49 

agriculture produced in the United States can be suc- 
cessfully raised on Alabama farms. Some of the 
more largely planted staples are: Cotton, the acreage 
of which is 3,730,482 and estimated to have been 
worth $87,008,432; cereals, the acreage of which is 
2,844,824, valued at $30,927,210; sweet potatoes and 
yams, 66,613 acres were planted, yielding a $3,578,- 
710 crop; potatoes, 14,486 acres were planted, yield- 
ing an $884,497 cro P '■> na y an d forage, totaling 238,656 
acres and yielding a $4,357,132 crop; peanuts, in acre- 
age 100,609, yielding a $1,490,654 crop. These crops 
are found on 70 per cent of the farms in the State. 

The cotton industry has greatly shifted its position 
in the last year. The appearance of the boll weevil 
has made it a difficult matter to raise the cotton crop 
so easily. Its culture must be on entirely a new basis. 
Formerly there were no insects to trouble the cotton 
except an occasional visit of the. army worm. The 
two conditions formerly necessary for a large yield 
were diligent labor and favorable seasons. The enemy 
in the form of the boll weevil has had this effect: A 
new method of cotton culture, a decrease in its acre- 
age, the making of small farms, a new emphasis to 
animal husbandry and to hay and grain crops, and a 
heretofore entirely new experiment, a shifting of the 
agricultural population into new kinds of farm labor, 
besides sending some into city life. Yet because the 
crop will command a high market value, many farm- 
ers will continue their efforts to fight the pests. Out 
of every 100 farmers the Advertiser 23 gives the fol- 
lowing facts: 86 plant cotton, 87 plant corn, 45 plant 

"Montgomery Advertiser, Special Edition, April 2J, 1916, 
Agriculture. 

4 



50 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams, 20 plant 
oats, and 14 plant peanuts. 

Alabama has the following physical and natural 
assets : A length of 350 miles, with an altitude ranging 
from sea level to 2,000 feet above; a mild climate, 
allowing pasturage for ten months in the year and in 
much of the State a possibility of two potato crops; 
plenty of rainfall, an abundance of streams for pas- 
ture, fishing, or navigation ; areas adapted for fruits, 
from the citrus in the south to the more hardy kinds 
in the north ; and it is seldom visited by a disastrous 
drought or a severe blizzard. 

The different counties, however, are not equally 
able in these several lines. We can illustrate this dif- 
ference by selecting three of the counties, Madison, 
Autauga, and Covington, which are located as fol- 
lows: Madison, on the north, contiguous to the Ten- 
nessee State line; Autauga, about equi-distant from 
north to south and from east to west ; and Covington, in 
the south portion, adjoining the Florida State line." 

Madison. Autauga. Covington. 

Dairy cows 8,362 4,187 5,411 

Horses 4,840 1,327 937 

Mules 7,259 2,427 3467 

Sheep 3,588 481 6,155 

Goats 1,576 2,360 785 

Eggs (dozen) 661,306 173,683 269,704 

Hay (tons) I3,099 1,821 3,775 

Corn (bushels) 1,016,151 278,362 453,985 

Cotton (bales) 19,882 5o,757 15,893 

All fruits (bushels) 66,226 17,962 21,239 

Apples (trees) 6,427 6,427 4,115 

Sweet potatoes (bushels) 60, 864 56,229 138,387 

2 *Thirteenth Census of the United States, Supplement for 
Alabama, pp. 632-654. 



The State's Resources. 51 

This comparison could be carried on at length, and 
it would be found that some counties are decidedly 
given over to cotton, some to fruit, some to mining, 
some to lumber interests, etc. These figures are given 
to show how wide are the possibilities in the State. 
It is doubted if there is another State in the Union 
which has such a choice of actual industries to offer 
to capital or labor. If one has money to invest, a 
suitable and profitable field can be located. If one 
is seeking employment as a chemist, civil engineer, 
architect, scientific farmer, cattle expert, or day 
laborer, he can find an outlet for his aptitude. 

Man (or labor), nature, and capital are the three 
factors of production, man and nature being the pri- 
mary factors and capital a derived factor of produc- 
tion. 26 We will close this chapter by calling atten- 
tion to the part which the wage earner plays in some 
of the larger industries. The average number of wage 
earners in Alabama engaged in manufacturing estab- 
lishments as reported by the Twelfth Census was 52,- 
902. In mining 19,132 were employed. Those in 
manufacturing received as wages $15,130,419; those 
engaged in mining received $10,345,848. Both to- 
gether received $25,475,567. Of those engaged in 
manufacturing, thirty-one per cent were employed in 
the lumber and timber business. 26 The census report 
does not give the number of wage earners employed 
on the farms, but does state that 83,843 farmers re- 
ported that they used hired help. Nor does it state 
what per cent of those laborers is white and what per 

25 C. J. Bullock, Introduction to Study of Economics, p. 118. 
28 Montgomery Advertiser, April 27, 1916. 



52 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

cent is black, but it is reasonably certain that nearly 
all of them are black. These laborers received in 
1909 $7,454,748. The statistics are not yet available, 
but the statement is indisputable that wages on the 
farm have risen from fifteen per cent to twenty-five 
per cent since 1909. 27 

The total value of all crops in Alabama in 1909 was 
$144,287,347. This does not include coal, iron, and 
limestone. For the same year lumber was valued at 
$25,057,662. Now we get a comparison of the different 
lines of activity from the 1900 census report, which 
says that sixty-nine per cent of all the people in Ala- 
bama are agricultural, ten per cent are engaged in 
mining, and twelve per cent are engaged in domestic 
and personal service. 28 This shows what one has an 
opportunity of doing in Alabama so far as soil, cli- 
mate, watercourses, mineral resources, etc., are con- 
cerned, and in what occupations persons are really 
engaged to better economic conditions. 

"Sixtieth Census of the United States, 1910, p. 658. 
28 Statistical Atlas of the United States, 1910, p, 94. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Importance of the Negro Industrially in 

Alabama. 

There can be no such relation in our society as an 
isolated person. The very moment one comes to the 
consciousness of his ability to choose he simultaneous- 
ly discovers that he is in the midst of concentric cir- 
cles — the family, the community, the State, the world. 
He learns that his choice is not for himself alone, but 
of necessity it must affect others. It can no longer 
be said : "I am my own, and I can do as I please." 
Perhaps the older psychology was responsible for this 
erroneous idea. 

So we discover that economic principles operate on 
the plane of faith and justice. To keep one segment 
of society reduced to poverty only means that the other 
must build, equip, and maintain all such social insti- 
tutions as schools, insane hospitals, homes for incura- 
bles, almshouses, tuberculosis camps, and charity hos- 
pitals. Therefore it is declared to be bad business to 
restrain or to fail to encourage such a segment in our 
social order when such overt acts lead them into per- 
petual dependence. The financial burdens imposed on 
society by the ever-increasing demands of civiliza- 
tion should be equally distributed among all. But if 
we have one class hopelessly dependent, it is clear 
that some one else has to be additionally taxed to 
cover this deficit. If there were only a few just be- 
low the line of subsistence, or if there were just a 
few above said line, the problem of economics would 



54 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

not be materially aggravated. But when we remem- 
ber that there were in Alabama 

Negroes. 

In 1890 678,489 

In 1900 827,307 

In 1910 908,282 

and more than fifty per cent of the males were under 
voting age — i. e., twenty-one years of age, 1 we see that 
the problem is complex. 

Again we find that in five of the more important 
fields in which the negro is employed throughout the 
United States the increase is as follows : 2 An increase 
of 35 per cent in agriculture in 1910 over 1900; an 
increase of 47 per cent in professional service in 1910 
over 1900; an increase in domestic and personal serv- 
ice of 17 per cent in 1910 over 1900; an increase in 
trade and transportation 103 per cent in 1910 over 
1900; an increase in manufacturing and mechanical 
pursuits of 155 per cent in 1910 over 1900. 

In Alabama, where the heart of our particular in- 
terest lies, we find this statement from the govern- 
ment report: 3 There were employed in the following 
occupations this per cent of negroes over ten years 

of age : 

18S0. 1890. 1900. 

Agriculture 77-5 7I-S 67.6 

Trade and transportation 3-5 6 6.7 

Manufacturing and mechanical industries. 4.5 8.2 10.3 

Domestic and personal service 12.9 12 13.4 

Professional service i-6 2 2 

thirteenth Census of the United States, Vol. II., pp. 46. 
47, Population. 

2 Negro Yearbook, 1914-15- P- 278. 

3 United States Census, 1900, p. 94, Occupations. 



The Importance of the Negro Industrially. 55 

Now let us compare the whites with the negroes in 
gainful occupations in 1900:* 

Per cent of native whites, males 84.8 

Per cent of native whites, females 14.2 

Per cent of negroes, males 88.4 

Per cent of negroes, females SO- 

To express the same fact in numbers instead of 
percentage it would be: White males, 289,152 over 
ten years of age engaged in gainful occupations ; 
white females, 47,682 thus engaged. Negro males, 
256,452; and negro females, 150,294. 

We will not go specifically into the number of 
farms owned and operated by the negroes in Ala- 
bama, nor here give the amount of money invested in 
live stock nor the amount of money received in wages. 
But let us emphasize the fact that the negro is indus- 
trially important in any scheme for economic better- 
ment. If we take him as regards his numerical 
strength in the State or to the per cent of the total 
workers or to the per cent of either sex as compared 
with the whites, we find that any scheme for the im- 
provement of economic conditions within the State 
must of necessity include the negro. Recall the large 
numbers engaged in particular industries and that 
more than fifty per cent of negro males are under 
twenty years of age, and see how prodigious the pos- 
sibilities appear. 

Again, recall how great the State's resources are 
declared to be and how changes in agricultural meth- 
ods will shift many into new fields of effort. The 
negro is to be largely affected by this development in 

4 United States Census, 1900, p. 84, Occupations. 



56 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

his struggle for existence. Since he by far outnum- 
bers the European laborer, his efficiency will mark 
the progress in industrial lines. If he lag behind or 
remain inefficient, he will retard industrial develop- 
ment considerably. If he become more intelligent, 
he will promote the State's advance. Even if a 
great immigration should come into the State and 
present a large constituency of white laborers, it 
would not remove responsibility so as to ignore the 
negro; for just a little less than one-tenth of the en- 
tire negro population of the United States is to be 
found here, and the rate of increase yearly is about 
ten thousand. 

What is in operation to better his condition, to make 
him a qualitative factor as well as a quantitative one, 
will be treated later. Let us take a particular illustra- 
tion which can be found in existence to-day in Law- 
rence and Cullman Counties. In the Tennessee River 
Valley, in Lawrence, where the unskilled negro has 
been planting cotton for so long a time, the soil has 
become exhausted. In case of rolling lands the top 
soil has been washed away, leaving at intervals some 
very poor spots. This land commanded a good price 
for a long time. In Cullman County a number of 
Germans moved in and purchased the land at a nomi- 
nal sum. They reclaimed the hillsides by terracing. 
They planted vineyards and fruit trees. The town of 
Cullman has become noted in that part of the State 
as a great point for the shipment of strawberries, the 
industry which has made Cullman famous. These 
Germans are making money on these poor acres and 
are buying homes, because they know how to save 
and build up depleted soil. The negroes are still 



The Importance of the Negro Industrially. 57 

renters for the most part in the valley in Lawrence. 
Not only are they failing as renters there, but the 
landowners find their land a little less productive 
year by year. Evidently society is the loser as a re- 
sult of the continued condition in Lawrence, a condi- 
tion which could be multiplied many times in other 
counties just as well. But you cannot build up the 
soil without first building up the negro. As long as 
he is allowed to pursue his present course, so long 
will society suffer. So to improve the yielding power 
of the acres, the skill of the negro must be enhanced. 
Without his improvement there is the absence of 
capital, the destruction of nature's contribution to 
man, and there remains only his unskilled labor, the 
sole factor of the three, with which to improve a 
hopeless condition. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Some Elements of Inefficiency. 

It is not always a pleasant task to tell one of his 
failures or to be told of one's shortcomings. It is 
much more pleasant and desirable to be told of only 
agreeable matters. But to discuss rightly the negro's 
rightful place in the economic scale we must mention 
with no degree of pleasure, but with a distinct sense 
of pain, some conspicuous elements of inefficiency, 
with the hope that it will be truly said: "Faithful are 
the wounds of a friend." These we will mention, not 
in the order of their importance, but as they readily 
appear to any thoughtful student of the problem. 

Unreliability is one of the common faults. If a ne- 
gro in Alabama, whether cook or day laborer, prom- 
ises to perform a certain task, you need not count on 
the performance of that task until you see the task in 
course of process. It is not at all uncommon for a 
cook or a servant to desert a family in the time of 
greatest need and never return to collect the amount 
due for service rendered. 

The wholesale charge of the "lying tendency" is 
serious, but no more serious than true. The safest 
plan to get baggage carried to the depot an hour before 
train time is not to depend on an engagement made 
the day before, but to go out and find a drayman who 
will carry the baggage immediately. This lack of 
dependableness militates in a very serious way against 
the efficiency of the negro. As a wage earner on the 
farm a man will rarely give an honest day's work when 



Some Elements of Inefficiency. 59 

not under personal supervision. There is a wide mar- 
gin in the returns between one engaged in time work 
when attended by superintendence and one engaged in 
time work without superintendence. 

Shiftlessness is a common characteristic of cook, 
washerwoman, wage earner, or tenant. Mr. Stone 
calls attention to the fact that tenants move so much 
that they speak of the place where they live as the 
"house," but rarely as the "home." Unscrupulous 
men long ago learned that if a negro rented land 
enough to work and was successful in making a suf- 
ficient crop with which to pay rent, the supply bill, 
the incidentals on the farm, and had some money left 
for him, he would immediately move to another farm. 
Knowing this desire for mobility, accounts were so 
arranged as to make the negro remain in debt to the 
landowner. The moving habit has a large place 
among them. Nor is the move made in order to bet- 
ter their condition, for it often happens that in the 
course of a few years the same families will return 
to the identical farm that they previously left, make 
a crop or two, and then go on to some other farm, 
perpetuating this shiftless condition. 

We made an investigation of this condition among 
the domestic servants in a city in Mississippi, Jackson, 
which will show a condition of affairs identical with 
any city in Alabama. The term of service was con- 
sidered in order to ascertain if the migratory spirit 
obtained there as well. This is the tabulated result. 

On North State Street, where the wealthy people 
live, who are able to secure the highest priced and 
most efficient servants, the following classes of serv- 
ants were employed in one year: 



60 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Cook. Nurse. Lot Boy. Washerwoman. 

House i 6 4 i 3 

House 2 2 8 1 

House 3 1 in 20 years. 1 

House 4 1 in 20 years. 3 

House 5 2 2 1 

House 6 2 1 3 

House 7 1 I 

House 8 2 3 

House 9 2 2 

House 10 3 2 

House 11 2 3 

House 12 3 3 2 

On a residence street just east of this survey an- 
other house-to-house canvass was made, running the 
same length — i. e., from Fortification to George — and 
no report was given for a domestic who had served 
as long as one year, and the highest number who 
served in one house was ten cooks, an average length 
of service of five weeks. It is quite true that inefficien- 
cy forces the housekeeper to dismiss the servant, and 
the unfortunate part of the matter is that nothing is be- 
ing done to change this condition. Perhaps a "house- 
wife league" could be formed to remedy it, but there is 
no such organization in existence which has as its 
avowed purpose the eradication of this particular evil. 
But there is another reason why there is so much 
changing going on. The negro is unwilling to under- 
go a diligent application sufficient to maintain a stand- 
ard satisfactory to the mistress. To take a specific 
example, the washerwoman will suffice. The first 
week or two of employment she will do beautiful 
laundry work. After this her work will begin to 
show signs of neglect until the garments are returned 
from the wash no cleaner than when they left for 



Some Elements of Inefficiency. 61 

the washtub. Garments, too, often go out in the 
laundry and never return. They are appropriated, 
but the plea is always made that they did not go into 
the wash. So this round goes. One is dismissed, and 
another takes her place, to do the identical things 
practiced by her predecessor. 

The common fault of cooks is- that they will carry 
home enough food to feed a small family in part. 
When the woman is not married she will oftentimes 
support some worthless, unemployed negro man. 
There is a widespread complaint on the part of the 
white women against this "tin pan brigade." It is 
commonly understood that the inexpensive factor in 
the employment of a cook is the wages. This defect 
in character operates against any substantial prog- 
ress. 1 This practice is to be deplored because it 
undermines the substratum of character. 

His narrow training of the past has fitted him for 
but few kinds of work. The advent of the boll weevil 
has made it necessary to greatly decrease the acreage 
of cotton and to substitute in its stead some other 
crop. This change is demanding the intensive method 
of farming, which has not hitherto been practiced to 
any extent in Alabama. This calls for a new crop 
or crops, new implements with which to work, and 
an intelligent calculation as to the returns from these 
new conditions. Go where you will, and you will 
scarcely find the types of agricultural implements 
which are found in the Western States. In fact, the 
type of plow has changed but little since the Civil 



^C. J. Bullock, The Introduction to the Study of Economics, 
p. 123. 



62 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

War. 2 There is a vast deal of difference between the 
labor expended on an Irish potato crop and the long 
season for the maturity of cotton, requiring more than 
double the expenditure of labor. Also the value of 
an average potato crop per acre is $53.72, while that 
of cotton is $19.89. (This was in the 1910 census 
report. Both are worth more to-day.) But the 
negro prefers the cotton crop to any other, having 
been trained to that. 

Practically the negro is an epicurean in philosophy. 
Whatever he accumulates this year is squandered 
long before the crop-growing season is ended. As 
a rule he is as dependent on the white man's help to 
feed him during the crop-growing period as he ever 
was in the slavery period. The spirit of improvidence 
seems to hold him fast. A garden with an ample 
amount and variety of vegetables would tellingly help 
him when his finances are low, but "if there is a gar- 
den plot the assortment of the produce is meager." 3 
A broader training would lead him to diversify his 
crop, to apply modern methods and implements in 
his work, and to know the adaptability of his land. 

The negro is not comparable to the German in 
Cullman County for swiftness or persistence. He has 
the ability, but lacks the ambition and energy. , It 
now takes two negroes to perform a task that was 
performed by one in former years. The work of 
three in i860 was equal to the work of ten in 1890. 4 



2 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, 

P- 333- 

3 A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 
197 ; M. S. Evans, Blacks and Whites in Southern States, p. 24. 

4 C. H. Otken, Ills of the South, p. 328. 



Some Elements of Inefficiency. 63 

The dying of the credit system in rural districts in 
Alabama is a blessing to the negro, for it has operated 
very much against his ownership of property. In 
1910 negroes owned 9,951 farms free from debt and 
6,551 with mortgage debt. Stated in another way, 
three-fifths of their farms were mortgaged, while one- 
third of the farms owned by the whites were mort- 
gaged. The system of credit of which we speak 
served to permit the immediate wants of the laborer 
to be satisfied, 5 and not many could resist the tempta- 
tion to buy whatever was seen or wanted. Often the 
employer would go into secret partnership with a 
merchant, and when the employee would ask for money 
a written order was given to the store, where the em- 
ployer got a ten-per-cent reduction and the merchant 
got a cash payment for goods which were sold at 
credit price, a price for the goods with interest added. 
In the city it is the "installment plan" that proves to 
be his undoing. A negro purchases furniture with 
a small payment in cash and pays a weekly sum there- 
after until the debt is paid. But, alas! after paying 
for a year or more on the furniture the debt is far 
from being satisfied. The goods are taken from the 
purchaser and sold to another party, to go the same 
round again. Besides the installment, goods are al- 
ways sold at a much higher rate than the same goods 
are sold for cash. Between house rent claims and 
the installment debt, there is but little left from the 
weekly wage. 

He needs more of a real family life. No one but a 
thoughtful white person knows the far-reaching in- 



C F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital, Chapter I. 






64 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

fluence of this lack of domestic unity. We are not 
thinking just now of the immorality which grows out 
of the promiscuity of association, but of the lack of 
family affection which is engendered by reason of 
scattered employment and which tends to lessen per- 
sonal influence. Every one knows the worth of the 
parental touch, especially when a great personality 
is resident in either parent. The women who are 
employed as servants (and they are legion) become 
mothers, but not home keepers. Their hours of em- 
ployment are such as to keep them from their homes 
the most of the day. 

The next evil which follows this is where the wife 
is an idler in her home, which tends to make her an 
easy prey to sexual sins. One of the greatest boons 
to-day to the colored race would be a program to raise 
the standards of morals among the women. No race 
is great which has a low order of motherhood. Per 
contra, most great men attribute their success to noble 
mothers. 

Professor Hart attempts to modify their sins by a 
comparison with the Southern whites in immoral re- 
lations, but acknowledges that they are low morally. 8 
Tillinghast says that their morals are unspeakably 
bad. 7 Rhodes says that they dispense with the mar- 
riage ceremony and that their sex relations are loose 
and irregular. 8 From this it is seen that their moral 
sensibilities need a toning up and strengthening. 

6 A. B. Hart, The Southern South, p. 135. 
7 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 
198. 

8 J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, p. 4. 



Some Elements of Inefficiency. 65 

Some current gossip goes that the mother instinct sees 
that the mulatto has an advantage over the pure black, 
and she is led to desire children of light complexion. 
But this does not account for their immorality, for 
many more black children are born out of wedlock 
than those of a mixed type. 

That a visit to an average Alabama farm will 
demonstrate a lack of initiative will readily be ob- 
served. A driver will not think to relieve the suffer- 
ing of his team when chafed into hideous irritation 
by ill-fitting harness. He will simply drive on in his 
heedlessness. This lack of initiative may account for 
his lack of property holdings. He depends on others 
to suggest the time to move, the time to work, the 
time to plant, the time to reap. He does not show 
himself to be an inventor. Professor Smith, of Louis- 
iana, held that the cranial sutures in the negro close 
early ; that he cannot restrain primal impulses ; that 
all of his judgments are of a practical type. The 
looking ahead, the forecasting ability, may be dor- 
mant; but if the negro has the ability to see future 
events, it is so far unutilized. 

Labor interests have been aided often by the or- 
ganization of unions among certain classes which 
needed just such aid as could be secured by said or- 
ganizations. Labor unions are not strong in Alabama, 
so far as they affect the negro and his interests. In 
Birmingham they are strong. But the absence of 
unions generally is due to the fact that so many of 
the wage earners belong to the agricultural class. 
Though negroes are admitted to the unions, it is with 



"A. B. Hart, The Southern South, p. 133 
5 



66 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

reluctance. The National Union has experimented 
by organizing the negro artisans into separate local 
unions. This has not worked so well ; for, as a matter 
of fact, negroes are frequently used as strike breakers, 
a term which brings odium to them from the unionist. 
As strange as it may appear, unionism is entirely ab- 
sent from two very large and important industries — 
viz., cotton-manufacturing and coal-mining. In 1908 
there were only 762 union men among those who mine 
coal. 10 However, a protest always comes from the 
unions when prison-made goods come in competition 
with union-made goods. 11 

The organization of engineers, painters, printers, 
barbers, and multitudinous professions is subject to 
conditions which they can manage better in a company 
than any one alone can possibly do. But the farmer 
is noted for his "individual" actions, notions, and pro- 
clivities. An illustration in Minnesota 12 will serve to 
teach what may be done elsewhere. Three sections 
were selected where ten farmers cooperated with the 
Minnesota Experiment Station with results favorable 
to the farmer. It showed that his panacea un- 
doubtedly lies in "the direction of organization, in a 
cooperative effort of some form, rather than a resort 
to an extreme individualism." Experiments are being 
tried in the matter of communities organizing for 
the purpose of planting and shipping potatoes. Some 
of these experiments in Alabama have failed, but co- 

10 The South in the Building of the Nation, Vol. VI. (Enc. 
Hist.), pp. 36-40. 

"F. T. Carlton, History and Problems of Organized Labor, 
p. 429. 

12 J. M. Gillette, Constructive Sociology, p. 168. 



Some Elements of Inefficiency. 67 

operative strawberry-shipping has proved a success, 
as has the cooperative shipment of hogs. Yet the 
negro has not gotten to that place except in a few 
small towns which are governed by negroes. This 
lack of organization will continue to force him to re- 
ceive smaller wages and to accept minimum prices 
for his produce. The societies which are at present 
doing the most for the negro are those whose pur- 
poses are (1) to encourage insurance, (2) to encour- 
age saving, (3) to encourage mutual helpfulness, and 
(4) to encourage cooperation. Washington states 
that there are twenty such societies in the United 
States so organized and that the Masonic fraternity 
alone has expended more than $100,000 in Alabama 
for widows and orphans. 13 

There are probably 450,000 negroes in the South 
seriously sick all the time, according to a statement 
made by Monroe N. Work, editor of the Yearbook, 
at an annual negro conference at Tuskegee, Ala., in 
1914. 14 The annual cost to society of such illness is 
computed to be $75,000,000. Over 112,000 negro 
workers in the South are sick all the time, and their 
annual loss in earning amounts to more than $45,- 
000,000. The farming interests lose annually from 
sickness and death among the negroes $200,000,000. 
So the total economic loss to the South from sick- 
ness and death among negroes amounts to $312,000,- 
000. The application of the science of medicine to 
the negro population would surely save $150,000,000 
of this amount. As a result of the conference, a na- 

13 B. T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. II.. 
Secret Societies. 

14 M. N. Work, Negro Yearbook, pp. 317-328. 



68 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

tional organization for the conservation of negro 
health was organized. 

There are now 600,000 negroes who are infected 
with tuberculosis. Just what is the rate of misfor- 
tune which belongs to Alabama cannot be given be- 
cause not many of the Southern States are in the 
area which reports a trustworthy record of deaths. 
Birmingham, however, has kept such a record. We 
may be sure that since Alabama has nearly one-tenth 
of the colored population of the United States, she 
furnishes her quota in the figures above. Dr. Chazel, 
in the Medical College in Charleston, S. C, exhibited 
before a class the second known case of tuberculosis 
among negroes. That was in 1882. It seems not to 
have been a characteristic disease among them, be- 
cause they lived in the open air and their cabins were 
well ventilated. But when tuberculosis did get a hold 
among them, it swept on with the fury of a prairie 
fire. In Birmingham the age of the highest death rate 
for both white and black was between twenty and 
thirty. This should be the age of greatest physical 
activity. This is the heyday of the athlete. The death 
rate, of course, is higher for the negro, the causes 
being in this order: tuberculosis of the lungs, violent 
deaths, pneumonia, and organic disease of the heart. 15 

Insanity, while not so great as among the whites, is 
on the increase. The causes of insanity as seen in 
the inmates of the asylum in Alabama are: 16 (1) Pre- 
eminently heredity, which may come to posterity either 
from similar conditions in progenitors or from dissi- 

1B Morality Statistics, 1912, p, 52. 

18 W. D. Partlow, Assistant Superintendent of the Alabama 
Insane Hospital, Questionnaire, 1915. 



Some Elements of Inefficiency. 69 

pation, excesses, and improper living in parents; (2) 
general ill health, including pellagra; (3) alcohol and 
drugs; (4) internal disturbances of nutrition and 
elimination, producing what is termed autointoxica- 
tion, and this intoxication in mental and nervous dis- 
turbances. 

These are some of the elements which make prog- 
ress hard for the negro. Certainly he has some very 
admirable traits. He is the only man who can love 
devotedly, but who has no corresponding quality of 
hatred. If maltreated, he for the most part is submis- 
sive and uncomplaining. But this is not the place to 
praise these great and excellent virtues. What Ala- 
bama needs is for him to eradicate those forces which 
make impossible his rise in the economic scale of life. 
He is on rich land, yet he produces less than does 
the poor white on poor land. 17 In the entire South 
negroes produce less rice, cotton, tobacco, etc., than 
they did in slavery — e. g., in 1859 they produced 5,- 
387,000 bales of cotton, and in 1869 they produced 
3,012,000 bales. 18 In speaking of the white man, Page 
has this to say : "One of these principles is the abso- 
lute and unchangeable superiority of the white race, 
not due to education or other advantages, but an in- 
herent and essential superiority based on superior in- 
tellect, virtue, and constancy." 1 " If the negro has the 
characteristics of the "intensively religious, imagina- 
tive, affectionate, without vindictiveness, great en- 

17 G. E. Barrett, The South in the Building of the Nation, 
Vol. VI., p. 43. 

1B Idem, p. 44. 

1B Thomas N. Page, The Negro : The Southerner's Prob- 
lem, Chapter VII., p. 292. 



jo The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

durance, courage, cheerfulness, having shiftlessness, 
incontinence, indolence, improvidence, extravagance, 
untidiness, business unreliability, lack of initiative, 
suspicion toward his own race," yet he has something 
to which an appeal should be made. If he is a member 
of a hopelessly weak race, then responsibility is all the 
greater on the superior race. 20 

20 The South in the Building of the Nation, pp. 163-185. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Forces for Efficiency. 

Among the numerous tendencies which help to 
make any man a citizen of a useful type, we may 
enumerate two, especially : education and possessions. 
So we shall examine the negro race to see what part 
he plays in the educational and financial world. 

In the ancient world the subject nation became the 
slaves of the conquerors. This slavery included all, 
however noble by birth or refined by education. 1 
Certainly this system was in vogue in Greece and 
Rome. In America the aborigines were treated as 
allies because they were inferiors as laborers. This 
is the only reason why the Indian escaped slavery, 
and because he was able to meet the demands for 
heavy labor discloses the reason why the negro first 
left his African home. 

There are two distinct and even contradictory 
views concerning the ability of the negro intellectually. 
They are, in short, (i) that the negro can receive 
an education as any other people, and (2) that he 
cannot attain unto finished scholarship. 

Some have referred to him as belonging to a child 
race. Others stoutly resist such an implication. An 
additional charge is made that the negro is a people 
with no indication of progress. "West African ne- 
groes have made no perceptible progress for thou- 
sands of years. They seem to have suffered an ar- 

'Palgrave, Diet, of Polit. Econ., art. Slavery; Encycl. 



72 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

rested development. At any rate, their culture is on a 
very low level and very unprogressive. They have 
no letters, arts or sciences ; their industries are con- 
fined to very elementary agriculture, fishing, a little 
hunting and some simple handicrafts. Language is 
in the agglutinative state; only suffixes are used 
among the Sudanese, but suffixes, alliterations and 
prefixes, among the Bantus." 2 

On the matter of education, J. L. M. Curry says 
concerning the curriculum used : "The curriculum was 
for a people in the highest degree of civilization; the 
aptitudes and capabilities of the negro were wholly 
disregarded. Especial stress was laid on classics and 
liberal culture to bring the race per saltum to the 
same plane with their former masters and realize the 
theory of social and political equality. A race more 
highly civilized, with the best heredities and environ- 
ments, could not have coddled with more disregard 
of all the teachings of human history and the neces- 
sities of the race." 1 This statement, coming from 
such a source, carries great weight, for Dr. Curry 
was considered an authority on questions of eduaction. 
Nor was he adjudged to be provincial, sectional or 
partial in matters of any kind, especially in the field 
of education. 

"African children learn until the age of puberty. 
. . . That the African begins to halt on reaching 
this latter stage of acquisition may be owing to the 
want of a quality of mind not to be found in brains 



2 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, pp. 
25, 26. 

"Idem, pp. 210, 211. 



Forces for Efficiency. 73 

of coarser texture." 4 Though this author does not 
take the position that the negro is incapable of prog- 
ress, he does assume that he is not capable, in the 
same degree with other races, in mental agility. 

"The African who turns into a Europeanized man 
is the exception which proves the rule, and whose 
isolated conduct misleads the white man, dazzled by 
the performance of one in a hundred thousand ; we 
seem blind to the inertia of the great mass that we 
have to deal with to-day in a state practically un- 
altered by the white work of four hundred years' 
duration." 6 

The negro does not belong to a child race so far 
as the time element is concerned, but he does so far 
as the psychological characteristics are concerned. 
We have only to examine such psychological traits 
as belong to the normal child 8 — viz., imitation, "ly- 
ing tendency," the predatory disposition, credulity, 
suggestibility, etc. — to see that the negro has these 
elements both in an individual and in a racial way. 
It would be most interesting to trace out the effect 
produced when the proper appeal is made to any one 
of these psychological elements. In the days of the 
Reconstruction the members of the Ku-Klux Klan' 
wore white sheets about them and tall paper hats on 
their heads so as to produce a weird, ghostlike ap- 
pearance. With quills in their mouths they made 
supulchral-like tones. They would ride in a column 



4 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, Chap- 
ter IV., p. 94. 

5 A. H. Stone, in the American Race Problem, p. 42. 
6 L. A. Weigle, The Pupil and the Teacher, p. 27 ff. 
'World's Best Histories. Vol. VIII., p. 57- 



74 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

around a cabin a few times, and, without molestation, 
they would quietly ride away. The Ku-Klux Klan 
would rarely resort to any kind of violence, but the 
negro's superstition and a highly-overwrought imagi- 
nation always secured the desired deportment of the 
negro. 

It is not possible to ascertain just the exact time 
when the brain cells begin to register impressions, 8 
but it seems to be at its best from nine to twelve 
years of age. The illustration of excellency of mem- 
ory, a characteristic of childhood, 9 can be adequately 
shown by the testimony of many ex-slave owners and 
their sons who have dealt in business affairs with 
negroes. (I myself had twenty years of experience 
in a general merchandise store dealing very largely 
with that race.) The testimony is that it is not a 
difficult task for a negro to run a credit account for 
a whole year with the accuracy of an expert book- 
keeper, holding in mind all articles purchased, the 
date of purchase, the amount purchased and the pur- 
chase price. 

We have previously spoken of his unreliability as 
illustrating the "lying tendency." The other psycho- 
logical characteristics could be traced and be found 
to exist in so large a way as to be reckoned as racial, 
for they abound in all the adults. 

"In one profoundly important particular they seem 
peculiarly deficient — i. e., in that strength of will 
which gives stability to purpose, long staying power, 
and self-control in emotional crises. Here is a strik- 

8 J. A. Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel, Chapter III., p. 5. 
*L. A. Weigle, The Pupil and the Teacher, Chapter III. 



Forces for Efficiency. 75 

ing contrast with our American Indians in several re- 
spects. 

Let us give just one more opinion which seems to 
question the mental powers of the negro : "The gen- 
eral capacity of the negro race at large for acquiring 
civilization is certain to be misconceived if they are 
credited with the achievements of men who share in 
Caucasian heredity. Misconceptions of this sort are 
serious if they lead to mistaken policies." 1 

All of the quotations given fairly represent the 
thought of those who honestly believe that the negro 
is incapable of securing an education. But before 
we form an opinion let us hear those who sincirely 
believe that these and similar teachings are founded 
on prejudice and misconceived principles. 

There is no record that as many as fifteen negroes 
were in attendance on higher institutions before 1840. 12 
No negro graduated from a college prior to 1828, 
though "negro education is as old as colonization.'" 

"The proved capacity of the negroes for education 
suggested the wisdom and economy of providing their 
schools with teachers of their own race,'"* etc. 

"The education of the negro is not new, so far as 
public money is concerned. Laws were passed in 
1802, 1804 and 1809 in Pennsylvania for their edu- 



10 J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, p. 
27. 



11; 



1 Idem, p. 123. 

12 C. G. Woodson, book published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York and London, p. 265. 

13 A. B. Hart, The Southern South, p. 308. 

14 The New International Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV., p. 340, 
article "Negro Education." 



y6 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

cation at public expense, saying- that it was the duty 
of the State to educate the blacks as well as the 
whites." 15 

Frederick Douglas, who told his plans to Mrs. H. 
B. Stowe, advocated vocational training as the best 
policy to raise the negro. Mrs. Stowe quite agreed 
with him. 16 

Monroe N. Work has done as much as, or more 
than, any one else to give force to this special feature 
of the negro race. He has with infinite care set forth 
the heroes, soldiers, poets, sculptors, ministers, edu- 
cators and other representative negroes. He seems 
to make out a good case enforcing the argument that 
the negro can sustain himself anywhere, if he has a 
chance. A reference to any one of his Negro Year- 
books will readily exhibit this statement. This led 
me to get some accurate information from the sources 
which were accessible to me. Letters were written to 
Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago and the 
University of Wisconsin. The questions that were 
asked are: "What is the negro's name? Where 
does he live? What degree or degrees did he win at 
other institutions? What degree was conferred by 
your institution?" The answers are as follows: 

Harvard's exhibit showed that from 1870 to 1916 
there were graduated thirty-six, of whom thirty-three 
received the A.B. degree, two the S.B. degree, three 
the LL.B. degree, one the M.D., and one the Ph.D. 
The special request was that the color be noted in 
reference to the graduate, whether black or mulatto. 

15 C. G. Woodson, book published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York and London, 1915, p. 308. 
ie Idem, p. 301. 



Forces for Efficiency. yy 

The reply was that no record had been kept of that 
particular fact. 

The University of Wisconsin replied that for the 
year 19 16 one negro graduated from the course in 
journalism. There was another who was in the sen- 
ior class, but did not graduate. He had the B.S. de- 
gree from Wilberforce University. The first of these 
students was of mixed blood, the latter was of pure 
type. 

The University of Chicago said that they kept no 
record of the students so far as color was concerned 
and hence could not answer the questions asked. 

The statistician of Yale said that W. E. DuBois, 
Ph.D., of 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, could prob- 
ably answer the question concerning the education of 
negroes as to whether they were of the pure black type 
or whether they were of the mulatto. My letter was 
written October 31, 1916, and the following reply 
was received from him : 

My Dear Sir: Concerning your letter of October 31, I beg 
to say that I have no way of knowing the kind of blood in 
any person, white or black. 

Very sincerely yours. 

The half page of names of negroes who have gradu- 
ated with honors and those who had won the Ph.D. 
from the well-known universities of the United States 
found in the Negro Yearbook of 1913, page 147, was 
sent to him. The request was that he should indicate 
the type of graduate, whether pure black or mixed type. 
As he is personally acquainted with most of these 
men, we hoped that he would give the information 
asked; for it would have been of real scientific value 



78 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

in establishing the statement that blacks cannot, as a 
rule, acquire an education, or it would have helped to 
overthrow the statement as forever false. It may be 
that in the future such information as is trustworthy- 
may be secured. 

Mr. Stone points out that "famous men of the ne- 
gro race" 17 is but the recital of the doings of the mu- 
latto. Attucks, Benneker, Douglas, Bruce, DuBois, 
Chestnut, Washington, and others should not be taken 
as examples of the negro's achievement, for very 
probably the elements of strength in them are not ne- 
groid, but Caucasian. We know that a person is en- 
titled to know the world of nature — the story of the 
rocks, the trees, the flowers, the stars, etc. Educa- 
tion that leaves out the scientific is incomplete. A 
person is entitled to know not only his language and 
its import, but has a right to know the best of poetry 
and prose. He has an aesthetic nature, a love of the 
beautiful and the sublime, whether in architecture, 
scenery or statuary. He must be taught to believe 
that, though he is an individual, he is a member of 
the body politic. Religion is a part of his being, and 
to neglect this is to play havoc with the higher facul- 
ties of man. Life cannot be as full and as rich if 
the religious, the aesthetic, the poetic, the scientific, 
and the social elements in man are neglected. The 
purpose of education is not to teach men how to live, 
but how to live a life at the highest. 18 But is the 
negro receiving the type of education that leads one 



"A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 

340. 

18 E. C. Wilm, The Culture of Religion, p. 21. 



Forces for Efficiency. 79 

into the cultural fields? Indeed, can he master the 
branches in the various departments of college cur- 
ricula? W. E. B. DuBois advocates what he calls 
the education of the "talented tenth." Granting that 
there are multitudes who never can become finished 
scholars, he believes there are a few who can with 
credit acquire great scholarship. He objected to the 
merely industrial education of the Tuskegee 19 plan, 
saying that political power, insistence on civil rights, 
and the higher education were all surrendered under 
the Washington administration. He thinks that B. 
T. Washington unduly compromised and silently ac- 
knowledged that the South is justified in her attitude 
toward the negro. "The negro race, like all races, 
is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The 
problem of education, then, among negroes must first 
of all deal with the talented tenth ; it is the problem 
of developing the best of this race that they may guide 
the mass away from the contamination of the worst 
in their own and other races. 20 

There are without controversy two methods advo- 
cated by the negroes themselves regarding the matter 
of education. "The main question, so far as the 
Southern negro is concerned, is : What, under the 
present circumstances, must a system of education do 
in order to raise the negro as quickly as possible in 
the scale of civilization? The answer to this ques- 
tion seems clear: It must strengthen the negro's char- 
acter, increase his knowledge, and teach him to earn 



19 W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, p. 51. 
20 W. E. B. DuBois, The Negro Problem, p. 33 (DuBois, 
Chestnut, Wilford, etc.). 



8o The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

a living." 21 DuBois seems to advocate "character" 
and "knowledge," while Washington advocated "char- 
acter" and a "living." 

There are four colleges and universities 22 of de- 
nominational order for negroes within the State, and 
two seminaries for women. Also there are four theo- 
logical schools, one State agricultural and mechanical 
college and forty-nine normal, industrial and private 
schools. So it seems evident that by far the larger 
number are of the last-mentioned type. "Although 
the negro has demonstrated over and over again his 
capacity for advanced academic education, it was 
early seen that the great hope lay along the lines of 
industrial and vocational training, 23 etc." 

Let us examine a few of these schools so as to get 
a general idea of the work which is being done in 
them and how it is accomplished. The Calhoun 
Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, is non- 
sectarian and had in 1915-16 359 pupils, 30 teachers 
and an income of $41,805. Six of the trustees live 
in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia ; only 
three of them live in Alabama. 

The Lomax-Hannon High and Industrial School, 
located at Greenville, is the property of the African 
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and has 282 pupils, 
11 teachers and an income of $2,834. 

The Arlington Literary and Industrial School is 
the property of the United Presbyterian Church, hav- 
ing 260 pupils and an income of $8,466. Of the ten 

21 W. E. B. DuRois, The Negro Problem, p. 57. 
"M. N. Work, Negro Yearbook, 1916, p. 262 ff. 
23 E. G. Dexter, History of Education in the United States, 
Chapter XXII., p. 451, 



Forces for Efficiency. 81 

members of the Board of Control, all live in Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Kowaliga Academic and Industrial Institute, lo- 
cated at Benson, is nonsectarian, having 150 pupils, 
7 teachers and an income of $6,000. Of the eleven 
trustees, seven live in New York, Pennsylvania and 
Connecticut. 

The Lincoln Normal and Industrial School, located 
at Marion, is the property of the Congregational 
Church, having 306 pupils, 16 teachers and an income 
of $4,760. Of the eighteen trustees, only one lives 
in Alabama, while seventeen of them live in North- 
ern and Western States. 

The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institution, 
located in Macon County, has 1,537 pupils, 194 teach- 
ers, and an income of $268,825. Of the nineteen 
trustees, eleven live without the State, principally in 
Northern, Western, and Central States. 

The Miller's Ferry Normal and Industrial School, 
located in Wilcox County, has 300 pupils, 17 teach- 
ers, and an income of $5,961. This property is owned 
by the United Presbyterian Church. There are nine 
trustees, all of whom live in Pennsylvania. 

The State Agricultural and Mechanical College is 
located at Normal. They have a property worth 
quite a good sum, consisting of 182 acres of land, 
20 buildings for all purposes, live stock, and general 
equipment worth $160,500. They advertise that they 
have "a combination hard to beat, a thorough Eng- 
lish education combined with a trade."' 

These are just a few of the forty-nine similar 



24 M. N. Work. Negro Yearbook, 1916, p. 262 ff. 

6 



82 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

schools for negroes in Alabama. Of these, twenty- 
nine are under the direction of some religious body, 
and twenty are nondenominational. There are also 
three other institutions which go by the name of col- 
lege or university. 

The most influential of all, perhaps, is the Tuske- 
gee Normal and Industrial Institute. A State legis- 
lator, an ex-Confederate colonel of the Confederate 
army, promised an ex-slave by the name of Lewis 
Adams that if he would deliver the negro votes he 
(the colonel) would work for a fund for negro edu- 
cation. Adams carried out his part of the contract, 
and the colonel got $2,000 with which to begin the 
plant at Tuskegee in 1880. He was elected, but when 
it was learned that he had helped negro education 
he was politically entombed. 25 This school is located 
in the Black Belt, and just one illustration of its work 
will suffice. The Montgomery Advertiser calls at- 
tention to the great value of the sweet potato crop. 
The chief difficulty, however, is that sweet potatoes 
are very hard to keep. In 19 15 the school raised 
15,000 bushels and lost practically none by rotting 
or spoiling. Not only are the students taught this 
and many other useful agricultural benefits, but the 
Tuskegee extension work is helping to improve the 
South. Many subjects are considered, as mothers' 
clubs, better houses for homes, better houses for 
schools, cooking classes, sewing clubs, and veterinary 
science, besides other matters concerning the better- 
ing of rural conditions. The Tuskegee school is well 
equipped, 29 having an educational plant, together with 

2B The Outlook, September, 1916, p. 101. 
26 Tuskegee to Date, p. 2, 1915 edition. 



Forces for Efficiency. 83 

grounds, live stock, and equipment in college and in- 
dustrial departments, worth $1,567,062. In addition, 
there are 19,527 acres of land unsold, which was a 
grant donated by Congress, and is valued at $250,000. 
Besides this, there is an endowment of $1,945,326. 

It might not be out of place to mention that there 
is at Mount Meigs a State reform school for negroes. 
This is significant, because there has been no attention 
given to this side of the social and educational life 
of the white race in all of the Southern States. 

These are the agencies set forth to battle with the 
ignorance of that race in Alabama and to bring it 
to higher levels. Let us give a comparison of the 
races in their growth toward literacy : 

Whites. Blacks. 

Of school age 399,275 328,024 

Illiterate (per cent) 9.9 40.1 

In public schools 277,715 133,394 

In high schools 16,040 1,476 

These figures are for persons of ten years and above. 

Urban Negro. Rural Negro. 

Illiterate (per cent) 17 43.5 

Whites between Six Negroes between 
and Fourteen. Six and Fourteen- 

Literate (per cent) 81 60 

In the eleven counties in the State where the negro 
inhabitants are equal to or more than three-fourths 
of the population forty-nine per cent of them between 
six and fourteen attend school. In the twenty-one 
counties where the whites constitute three-fourths 
of the population forty-nine per cent of the negroes 
are in school. In Macon County, where the Tuskegee 
Institute is located, illiteracy is at forty-three per 



84 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

cent, and white illiteracy is only 6.4 per cent there. 
The Black Belt counties exhibit the maximum of 
illiteracy among the black population and the maxi- 
mum of literacy among the whites. The counties 
showing a small percentage of negroes show the max- 
imum of illiteracy among the whites, but in every 
instance nearly three times as much illiteracy among 
the negroes as among the whites. 27 

Lest the picture seem too dark, let us remember 

that 

1S90. 1900. 1910. 

Negroes not in school (per cent).. 69.1 57.4 40.1 

In each decennium the females showed the greatest 
illiteracy. 

To combat this condition there are 2,371 teachers 
for them in Alabama, 134 having life certificates, 
which were awarded after their holding the first- 
grade license for five years, 28 having the first-grade 
license, 544 having the second-grade license, and 1,- 
665 having the third-grade certificate. Those holding 
life certificates are mostly of mixed stock — i. e., 
mulatto and beyond middle life. Those teachers 
were from institutions within and without the State. 28 
They are employed by contract for a term and not by 
the month, as is done with the whites. The male 
rural teacher (negro) receives $157 for a term, while 
the male urban receives $332 per term. The female 
(negro) receives $137 per term, while the female 
urban teacher receives $210. They receive much 



" 7 See Thirteenth Census, Vol. I., p. 1136; Vol. II., p. 1299. 
42 Pop. ; also Vol. II., pp. 47-59. 

28 W. F. Feagin, State Superintendent of Education in Ala- 
bama, by Questionnaire. 



Forces for Efficiency. 85 

less of the State's money per capita than do the 
whites. There are only twenty-four days in a school 
year as an average for all the negro children of the 
State. So by actual computation it is seen that it 
requires twenty-four years for a negro to complete 
an elementary course if he should depend alone upon 
the average term of school and the appropriation 
made for the same. 

There are two reasons why compulsory education 
and adequate school terms have not been ordered : 
The whites are by far the largest taxpayers, and they 
feel that they have the first and largest call on that 
fund for education ; there has been but little money 
in the South to be expended as specials for education 
since the Civil War. There has been a struggle to 
build up the country from that depleted condition in 
which the people found themselves. 

But the State must not consider her work of edu- 
cation as a work of charity nor even as an optional 
matter. She must educate her youth for her own 
safety and prosperity ; education should be regarded 
not as a luxury, but as a necessity. The United States 1 * 
spends each year $500,000,000 more on the detection 
of crime and the suppression of same than upon 
charity, religion, and education combined. 

Education will not bring all of the benefits to any 
part of the human family. The Greeks laid great 
stress on this point in educating their youths. We 
know that one may talk learnedly on virtue, as did 
Lorenzo de Medici, while he prosecutes the ways of 

29 H. Miinsterberg, The South Mobilizing for Social Serv- 
ice, p. 432. 



86 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

vice. A knowledge of right will not insure that it 
will be practiced. But education can at least do this 
for the negro : it will give him a proper outlet for 
his individual gifts, putting him in the field where 
he is best fitted and drawing out his latent possibili- 
ties, and it will serve to increase his wants which 
make for a higher standard of living. 

When we investigate the efficiency of the laborer, 
we find that the following elements conspire to make 
the laborer profitable: 30 (a) Inherited strength; (b) 
acquired knowledge, skill, and dexterity; (c) the 
social esteem in which the laborer is held. These 
conditions are interdependent, and a lack of intelli- 
gence must of necessity impair the general efficiency 
of the laborer. To deny every sort of training and 
education to the blacks is like denying food to the 
beast which is to carry the burden. So it appears 
that the great contribution which must be made to 
raise the economic efficiency of the negroes in Ala- 
bama is to get them through such courses as are of- 
fered at Tuskegee, Benson, Normal, Marion, and 
Miles Memorial College to raise their standards of 
wants. Then they will be morally and financially 
stronger and society itself more praiseworthy. 

Vitally connected with education and possessions 
is the matter of disfranchisement. Mississippi, South 
Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama 
have disfranchised the negro. There is a very dis- 
tinct gain to society by that act as well as a gain to 
the negro himself. The Alabama law, or rather the 

30 C. J. Bullock, Introduction to the Study of Economics, 
Chapter V., p. 126. 



Forces for Efficiency. 87 

Constitution as amended, requires that the voter must 
be able to read and write or to explain the Constitu- 
tion if read to him, and must possess $300 worth of 
property. 31 It is reliable information that 213,293 
negroes are of voting age, potentially able to vote, 
but it is estimated that not more than 3,000 have 
qualified by registering and paying the poll tax. 
Rather than pay this tax, many allow this right of suf- 
frage to pass as being of less importance than the 
$1.50. This people were not prepared to enter the 
full rights of citizenship when they came from bond- 
age. The Federal government perpetrated an unpar- 
donable offense against society in giving full powers 
to them so soon. They ought to have been required 
to have some other qualification than freedom. We 
do not permit children to vote, because they have no 
appreciation of the responsibility incumbent upon a 
citizen. While the South sinned in the name of hu- 
humanity, the Federal government sinned in the name 
of liberty. Now the conditions have made it impera- 
tive that the voter must be both literate and the pos- 
sessor of real or personal property. Both are within 
his reach, and both are calculated to spur him on 
toward competency. 

The casual observer places no premium on the mat- 
ter of wealth. Many regard it as something with 
which to furnish the satisfaction of immediate wants 
only. But economists clearly show that the whole 
superstructure of individual, national, and interna- 
tional influence and leadership is conditioned on a 



31 C. W. Chestnut, The Negro Problem, p. 86. 



88 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

financial basis. 32 While moralists claim that this is 
a false basis upon which to build national integrity, 
we know that wealth is the sine qua non of all good 
in life. An enumeration of the significance of wealth 
will be enough without elaboration to convince the in- 
quiring mind of the diffusive influence of wealth. 

(i) The rise of civilization of any people depends 
on the winning of wealth. A people cannot rise in 
the scale of culture until it accumulates enough to 
satisfy subsistence wants and has enough surplus to 
expend upon the higher things of life. Every suc- 
cessive advance from the primitive stage of migration 
and undeveloped political organization up to the high- 
est known point of attainment has been determined 
by the method of increase in possessions. 

(2) A study of economic history will reveal that 
national leadership has successively changed from 
Italy to Spain, from Spain to Holland, from Holland 
to France, from France to England, from England 
to Germany, and doubtless now the balance of eco- 
nomic power, coming as it is to the United States, 
will leave her as political leader of the world. The 
greatest growth in material well-being was noted as 
the dominant factor in the shifting of political leader- 
ship. 

(3) When a nation has wealth it is not good for 
the nation if that wealth is concentrated. There must 
be a distribution, though not necessarily in equal 
amounts, for this would likewise be fatal to progress. 
All need as a minimum a competency; yet some 

32 F. S. Baldwyn, Lectures in Economic History, classroom 
in B. U., 1913. 



Forces for Efficiency. 89 

must have enough for enormous investments in fac- 
tories, transportation facilities, etc. 

(4) The political constitution of a people is aristo- 
cratic or democratic, according to the manner of dis- 
tribution of wealth. Concentration lends itself to 
the former type of government. A more or less even 
distribution of wealth fits into the latter type. 

This state of affairs is true within our nation so 
far as some of the larger cities are concerned ; for 
while harbors were factors in determining the ship- 
ping interests, the surrounding country with agricul- 
tural or mining interests helped to change the position 
of many cities in the matter of growth, in population, 
and in influence. It is interesting to read how the cities 
on the Atlantic Seaboard had a shifting of position 
because some new kind of industry, some cheaper 
method of transportation, the discovery of some new 
mineral, etc., gave one city an economic advantage 
over another. 

The progress of the Southern white is wrapped up 
in the achievements of the Southern black. It is a 
false theory that teaches that the negro should be kept 
penniless. The individual, whatever the color, who 
has capital is a factor in the production of wealth. 
Besides nature and labor, which form important 
methods to be used in production, the money which 
has been saved can be loaned or invested to secure 
producers' goods. The more money there is avail- 
able for being used in the furtherance of production, 
the greater the benefit. Any class stands in its own 
way to progress when it deprives another class of 
the possibility of winning wealth. Failure of the one 
is inevitably to be shared by the other. Economic 



90 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

progress or retrogression is a mutual affair. In a 
moral way it is most degrading and corrupting for 
any one to be, and so remain, penniless. It makes 
easily possible the sale of body and soul. A man of 
any color, creed, or calling who is destitute of ma- 
terial goods or who has no permanent attachments in 
the sense of a home cannot possibly be the citizen or 
father he ought to be. Selfhood is irretrievably con- 
nected with possessions. In the past the men of great 
patriotism were those who had homes to defend. 
Per contra, those who have not leisure sufficient in 
which to build up the waste material of body, much 
less the time to invigorate the mind and soul, can- 
not be moved by the great questions which stir so- 
ciety to the very center. Wealth is, then, an indis- 
pensable factor in the advancement of morality, in 
the development of patriotism, and an indispensable 
means of creating larger economic returns. 

There are certain factors which determine whether 
the negro has, potentially or actually, economic effi- 
ciency. One is his physical ability, and the other is 
his inclination to exert this labor force. His willing- 
ness to work is determined by his wants, by the social 
status of the laborer, and the interests in work as con- 
ditioned by the system of labor employment or re- 
muneration. In the past labor has been tested under 
many systems — viz., serfdom, time work, piece work, 
cooperation, profit-sharing, and gain-sharing. These 
have been tested by industrial societies in general. 
The negro has tested these for himself but little in 
Alabama. The last three enumerated forms of em- 
ployment are not so widely applicable on farms, since 
the motive already exists in the mind of the laborer 



Forces for Efficiency. 91 

which these methods are supposed to instill. To 
create wealth is one thing; to save wealth is another. 
In either case there must be a motive which impels 
the individual. His inclination to save is generally 
dependent on his ability to forecast the future, his 
capacity for enjoyment, the rate of interest secured, 
the security of the investment, family affection, hope 
of economic independence, and social ambition. All 
of these social facts are worthy of consideration. 
One of the first things needed in the rise and prog- 
ress in the negro's economic life, both in order of time 
and of importance, is the creation or development of 
the forecasting ability. He does not look back to 
some golden age, nor does he look forward to some 
Utopian era. He simply does not look at all, as he 
follows his inclinations. One hopeful sign is to be 
noted in the 1910 census, however. There was in 
Alabama an increase of ownership in homes over the 
period ending in 1900. 

"Many of the ex-slaves 33 acquired property, but 
scarcely any at the age of ten at the surrender did ex- 
cept as an inheritance." In Alabama it is difficult 
to verify this condition which Tillinghast estimates 
for the country at large, because the early census 
figures are found omitting such a count. The census 
of 1910 states that of the 110,443 negroes farming, 
15 per cent owned their farms, while 84.5 per 
cent were tenants. There is an increase in the num- 
ber of those buying farms which contain between 
twenty and forty acres. The white people own 16,- 
000,000 acres, while the blacks own 4,750,000 acres. 

""Montgomery Advertiser, April r6, 1916. 



92 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama, 

The, money that the blacks have as an investment is 
largely in land — to be specific, 69 per cent — and the 
remaining money is invested in buildings, farm im- 
plements, domestic animals, and other farm neces- 
sities. This gives the order in which the amount of- 
investment comes. The order of the whites' invest- 
ment is : Land, houses, domestic animals. 

In Macon County negro farmers increased from 
167 in 1900 to 421 in 1908, and they pay $236,985 
tax on 55,976 acres in that county. 

In the State at large the negro holds his own very 
well so far as percentage in increase of wealth is con- 
cerned. 

1900. 1910. 

All farm property $95,075455 £190,446,505 

Land 49,134,093 106.940,798 

Buildings 21,767,050 42,645,998 

Machinery 5,106,250 9,819,496 

Stock 19,068,062 31,040,213 

This represents the growth of investments for the 
whites living in rural districts. The 1900-10 census 
on farm property gives the standing of the negro in 
the same lines of investment as follows : 

1900. 1910. 

All farm property $9,103,345 $22,506,427 

Land 5,094,970 13.307,506 

Buildings 1 ,549.3-40 3,977,996 

Machinery 461,920 936,526 

Stock i,997,i i 5 4,284,363 

It will be evident from this that the rate of increase 
is greater by far if we consider only the percentage 
basis for the negro. But just what that means it is 
difficult to tell. The only gain in a large way is 
limited practically to the purchase of farm homes 



Forces for Efficiency. 93 

and other homes. In the Negro Yearbook of 1913 
there are listed on page 231 eight negro banks, but 
in 1916 there was only one left. 

"Since the negro is in the midst of a highly-civilized 
people where he can learn much," says Washington, 
"it is a disadvantage that his progress is constantly 
compared with the progress of a people who have 
centuries of civilization, while the negro has been 
free only forty years." 34 We think, however, that it 
does not follow that slavery was the cause of the 
present backwardness. Slavery does not deprive a 
man of inborn gifts; it only makes limitations on the 
larger use of those gifts. 

There was in Alabama in 191 3 a total wealth of 
real and personal property given in at sixty per cent 
of its value, $645,380,500. The income tax from indi- 
viduals and corporations amounted to $261,760. In 
1913 the real a,nd personal property was valued at 
$576,807,488, and the income tax was $218,628. We 
may fairly presume that the white persons chiefly paid 
the income tax. Negro possessions lie mainly in two 
directions — viz., in farms and in other homes. The 
negro is gaining in wealth, but not in proportion to 
the rate of increase by the whites. There is in- 
vested in the manufacture of cotton goods and in the 
iron and steel industries more than is invested by all 
negroes in Alabama for farms, buildings, machinery, 
and live stock put together. Negroes have no stock 
in these establishments just mentioned for manufac- 
turing purposes. Then there are other large indus- 



Si B. T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. I!., p. 
395- 



94 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama, 

tries owned and controlled by the whites whose capi- 
tal ranges from $4,732,077 to $24,442,461. The 
stockholders of these likewise are whites. 

To guess what the negro will do in the future 
would be only a guess. Thomas Jefferson said that 
it would be a thousand years before the region in the 
United States east of the Mississippi River would be 
settled. But we see that he was slightly mistaken. 
Lest we make a "slight" mistake in our calculation, 
we will not dare say what will be "the future of the 
negro race" in Alabama. If he continue to go to 
other sections of the country and enter new fields of 
industry, time alone can determine whether the re- 
sults will be satisfactory or disastrous. If he remain 
in Alabama, a change in occupations will change his 
earning power more or less, for "time makes ancient 
good uncouth." Bishop Thirkield in an address be- 
fore the working conference on the organic union of 
Methodism held at Northwestern University in 1916 
said : "In my judgment Southern Methodism has 
never fully grasped the seriousness and possibilities 
of this problem because not organically related to the 
race in Church life and work." 85 

This is a fairly accurate statement if we limit our- 
selves to the number who are really interested in that 
race in comparison with the number of those who are 
unconcerned. The interest seems to be very low. 
Harris Dixon tells this story in his lecture, "Fore- 
sight and Hindsight": A judge once visited a negro 
school and found a class studying Shakespeare's 

S5 W. P. Thirkield, The Negro and Organic Union of Meth- 
odism, 1916. 



Forces for Efficiency. 95 

"Merchant of Venice." The judge asked a negro boy 
to relate the story in order to ascertain the degree of 
efficiency of the pupil. The student's reply was that 
he was not certain that he could give a good descrip- 
tion of the story, but the best he could make out of it 
was this : "A white man and a Jew had a lawsuit 
about a pound of meat; the Jew won the suit, but the 
white man got the meat." 

The white man entered the red man's land and 
drove him westward. The white man continued fight- 
ing and killing the Indian until there is now only a 
remnant of the tribes which formerly held undis- 
puted sway over North America. The annals of 
fraud and bloodshed, misrepresentation and cruelty 
are not in keeping with the sense of liberty, fraternity, 
and equality of Christian America. The Anglo- 
Saxon is a conquering people, driving out nations with 
which they come in conflict. If peace and concord 
can be established and be made perpetual between the 
whites and the blacks, there will be a new chapter 
of history written. The majority of the wars which 
have been waged in the past have been for economic 
independence and economic freedom. This applies 
to national and intranational strife. The negro will 
possibly remain the favorite laboring class in Alabama 
as long as he remains economically profitable to the 
whites. It therefore behooves him to qualify him- 
self for a larger earning capacity. What will happen 
if he fail and drift into a lower degree of inefficiency 
is purely a contingent question and cannot be an- 
swered. We do know that the European will soon 
swarm to our shores and ask for a share in the labor 
market of Alabama. The conflict in keener compe- 



96 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

tition is inevitable, and now is the time for the negro 
to intrench wherever he can sustain himself. 

"There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken at the flood, 
Leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
We must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures." 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Uplifting Agent. 

Having reviewed the past history of the negroes, 
we may summarize as follows : Prior to the surrender 
of the Confederate army in 1865 negroes in Alabama 
were without personal or real property ; they had no 
education above the elementary branches; they en- 
tered into freedom with no equipment further than 
good bodies and training in certain industries ; their 
lack of capital and their inexperience in business af- 
fairs made them an easy prey of dishonest men ; their 
accumulations to the present time are not commensu- 
rate with their numerical growth nor with the State's 
increase in wealth, which increase in capital from 
1900-10 was $ioo,ooo,ooo. 1 Their absence from an 
influential effect in economic affairs is largely due to 
an unpreparedness based on insufficient education. 

It is impossible to forecast the future and to ac- 
curately determine what will be the state of the negro 
race for all time to come. Several successive events 
have transpired in the last ten years which show how 
impossible it is to determine the economic position of 
that race. The building of railroads, the opening of 
mines, the introduction of vast sawmill plants, and 
manufactories of various kinds have removed them 
from the farms. The boll weevil helped in the break- 
ing up of the wholesale production of cotton and 
caused a more general adoption of small farms. This 
new order introduced the practice of crop rotation. 

kelson, Perpetual Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia, Vol. I., p. 123. 

7 



98 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

In 1916 labor agents were sent into the South to in- 
duce laborers, under the promise of high wages, to 
migrate to Northern and Eastern points. Industries 
engaged in making war and other materials were 
among the bidders. Being escorted by said agent, 
many of the laborers left the farms. But in 1917 
crops were once more abundant and commanded such 
a high price that the farmer again became a most in- 
dependent man. Again cotton was produced, to the 
surprise of all, without serious damage by reason of 
pests, and its market value was greater than it had 
been for forty years. This condition may or may not 
draw many workers back to the farm. Our problem 
is not affected, so far as the principle is concerned, 
in the migration of one-half or even of two-thirds of 
that race from the State. The number that do re- 
main, whether great or small, should be sharers in 
the State's thrift and accumulations. 

We have already described in full the position of 
negroes in the economic life of Alabama and have 
seen that they possess but little in proportion to their 
numbers. We have seen too that under intelligent 
superintendence, whether that of directing prisoners 
or farm laborers, they have become great factors in 
production. But their improvident spirit keeps them 
dependent, which is a serious hurt to society. This 
process of shiftlessness has been perpetuated and en- 
couraged from year to year. Now, whether the ne- 
groes will remain farmers or will increasingly become 
other industrial workers, this thesis can be defended: 
Education will not only fit them for a richer and 
fuller life, but will enhance their forecasting ability, 
will raise their culture wants, and will supply the 



The Uplifting Agent. 99 

means by which these wants may be secured. Poten- 
tially, the negroes in Alabama for the past fifty years 
have been important to the financial profit of certain 
industries. Unless some method is introduced which 
will break the present order of dependence, negroes 
will likely remain a liability to the State. We must 
look to education as an agent to help in raising the 
race toward economic independence. 
• No people with forty per cent of their number 
illiterate can be expected to win and to retain wealth 
or to direct their investments toward productive ends. 
Yes, education will elevate this forty per cent of 
subnormal people and will give the other sixty per 
cent a better chance in the "bread-and-butter" strug- 
gle. Education will give them opportunities hitherto 
unknown in applying scientific results in the matter 
of crop rotation, in the kind of fertilizer required by 
certain soils and plants, in an intelligent fight against 
the many insects that infest plant and animal life, and 
in making, saving, and investing capital. Thus they 
will be enabled to make greater productions on the 
farms with no larger outlay of expenditure than is 
made by them at the present time. The government 
is calling on every citizen to produce and save food 
because the whole world is hungry. Think what these 
workers could contribute to the world's food supply 
if they only had the necessary equipment! 

If, then, education is the way out of their state of 
impotency, let us see what is being done to remove 
the static condition of their economic life. We make 
bold to assert that the State of Alabama has never 
seriously undertaken the education of her citizenship. 
The denominational colleges for the whites, as well 



ioo The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

as the institutions receiving State aid, give courses 
leading to the A.B. and the B.S. degrees, and offer 
courses leading to the M.A. degree, but do not en- 
courage students to pursue them because the number 
of students who apply for such work is so small that 
the cost to the institution does not justify the offer. 
There is no institution, whether Church, State, or in- 
dependent, that offers a course higher than the mas- 
ter's degree. So it is not surprising to find that most 
of the professors in the University of Alabama, as 
well as the president of the university, are both born 
and educated in States other than Alabama. The 
conclusion from this is too obvious for elaboration. 
There are tenable reasons why the State has been 
dilatory in her educational work. There is a reason 
why she gave her first and best to the whites. But 
will past inability on the part of the State atone for 
present neglect? 

In "An Educational Survey of Three Counties in 
Alabama" 2 it is shown that the State of Massachu- 
setts has more money invested in sites, buildings, and 
equipment per child of school age ($115) than have 
all of the following States taken together: North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Geor- 
gia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and 
Arkansas ($112). 

The Chancellor of Emory University, Bishop W. 
A. Candler, in "The Phenomenal Philanthropy of 
19 16" shows by itemized figures that the Univer- 
sity of Chicago, Yale, Columbia, Harvard, Western 
Reserve, DePauw, Boston University, Lafayette 



Educational Survey, 1916, p. 121. 



The Uplifting Agent. 101 

College, Smith College, Rutgers College, Amherst 
College, Bates College, Haverford College, Knox 
College, and Tufts College 3 received $7,000,000. Re- 
member that these are the bequests of one year only. 
Some of these institutions are already the possessors 
of large endowments. Alabama included, there is not 
an institution in the whole South with a productive 
endowment above $5,000,000. Alabama has about 
this sum in endowment, a large part of which is in 
land which is estimated to be rich in minerals. We 
will give this table to exhibit what is the real endow- 
ment of certain State universities in the South : 4 

University of Georgia $ 370,000 

University of Tennessee 409,000 

University of North Carolina 250,000 

University of Mississippi 544,000 

University of Virginia 400,000 

University of Arkansas 130,000 

University of Texas 2,080,000 

University of Alabama 5,000,000 

These facts seem to put Alabama easily in the lead, 
but the income from all sources is not as much above 
the average income as the endowment fund would 
appear to indicate. 

Columbia University 5 has a larger endowment than 
all of the universities in North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi- 
ana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia, 

3 The Phenomenal Philanthropy of 1916, pp. 3-5. 

"Nelson, Perpetual Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia, Vols. I., V., 
VIII., XL, XII., art. Universities. 

5 Figures secured from Nelson's Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia, 
Vol. III., p. 253. 



102 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

whether they be under Church, State, or independent 
control. These facts show the serious handicap under 
which Southern institutions operate. 

Let this be said in the matter of philanthropy, that 
the institution which has received the largest con- 
sideration in bequests and donations is the Tuskegee 
Normal and Industrial Institute for negroes. The 
donations to colleges for whites has been inconsider- 
able. 

The other point in regard to a lack of seriousness 
in education in Alabama is in reference to the negro 
race. It is commonly said that even if the negroes 
had good institutions of learning they could derive 
but little benefit from them, because negroes are nat- 
urally devoid of mental ability. The fact in the case 
is that no experiment has ever been made which will 
give expert testimony as to their mental capacity. 
Of course there are many among them that prefer 
the "laissez faire," just as there are many to be 
found among any other people who follow lines of 
least resistance. If, however, the test which was ap- 
plied in Daniel's time were now given to negroes, the 
results might be the same. "And the king spake unto 
Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should 
bring in certain of the children of Israel, even of the 
seed royal and of the nobles ; youths in whom was no 
blemish, but well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, 
and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, 
and such as had ability to stand in the king's palace ; 
and that he should teach them the learning and 
the tongue of the Chaldeans." 9 Some person who 



6 Bible, Daniel, Chapter L, verses 3 and 4. 



The Uplifting Agent. 103 

is interested in this phase of the question should 
be induced to give some negroes a similar trial. In- 
stead of giving his money to the Freedman's Aid So- 
ciety or to some school for improvement in buildings, 
which means money to be spent in such a way as will 
be of a general good, let him select a few worthy, 
qualified, and aspiring youths and enable them to se- 
cure both a college and university education and after- 
wards permit them to have an opportunity to demon- 
strate what can be done by negroes prepared to be 
participants in the winning of wealth. 

We already know what day laborers, renters, and 
what Adam Smith calls "artificers" can do. But these 
youths thus educated would be called upon to render 
an account of themselves in entirely new fields of 
endeavor. In the event that some should fail to be- 
come economic factors, that would not evidence the 
futility of education in its relation to economic pos- 
sibility. As we do not make such arguments against 
the value of education for the whites, we should not 
urge them against the blacks. But, alas ! regardless 
of the ability or inability of the State, let us see what 
are the actual conditions as they pertain to the ele- 
mentary education of negroes. In three counties 
which lie in the northern, central, and southern parts 
of the State, Morgan, Macon, and Covington, the 
average salary of a negro rural teacher, which is paid 
from the State treasury, is $131 per year, or about 
the amount received as wages in one month by a 
worker in the Ford Automobile Factory. The salary 
of an urban teacher is $415 per year. In each of the 
counties mentioned above there is usually a small 
supplement given by the patrons. With this small 



104 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

salary, which employs fifty-eight third-grade teachers, 
fifteen second-grade, and seven first-grade, 7 we can 
see the esteem in which their education is now held. 
Any scheme to improve this condition will perhaps 
meet with resistance from legislators and appropriat- 
ing committees. At present there is no likelihood that 
the State will make an appropriation commensurate 
to the needs of negro education. Some appropria- 
tion must be made by some hospitably-inclined person 
or persons or by some independent board like the 
Carnegie Institution. And if this institution of learn- 
ing can fit negroes in Alabama for economic better- 
ment, a service will have been done for hundreds of 
thousands of needy people. Then the State will be 
richer both in materials and men. 

The elements mentioned in Chapter VII. which 
protract economic inefficiency are : Unreliability, 
shiftlessness, theft, narrow training, lack of inde- 
pendence, slow workers, the credit system, absence 
of family life, immorality, lack of initiative, the place 
of labor unions, and health. It is entirely possible 
to exhibit the effect of education in the case of any 
individual or community which may possess any or 
all of these elements of inefficiency. Though it is 
not necessary here to go into such minutia as will 
illustrate how education could eliminate each defect 
in his economic life, yet one example suffices to show 
the beneficent effect of education in eradicating cer- 
tain evils which deter the economic progress of the 
race. 



7 An Educational Survey of Three Counties in Alabama, 
iq 16, p. 73. 



The Uplifting Agent. 105 

From the many counties let us select two in order 
to ascertain how negroes regarded industrial educa- 
tion in the form of home makers' clubs and what was 
really accomplished by the members of those clubs. 
In Pickens County, which is in the central west of 
the State, the population is about equally divided be- 
tween negroes and whites. The Department of Edu- 
cation" of 1916 shows that there were 336 negro girls 
enrolled in canning clubs, and the first year of the 
clubs' existence the girls preserved 22,203 quarts of 
fruits and vegetables. In Lowndes County, which 
is inhabited largely by negroes, a similar work was 
done. The same educational exhibit shows that this 
Black Belt county had 900 negro girls enrolled in 
canning clubs, who saved 56,000 quarts of fruit and 
vegetables. This splendid work inspired the County 
Superintendent of Education to say : "Communities 
having these clubs are more alive to the needs of 
their people and would on a careful survey of eco- 
nomic conditions show up much better because of 
these clubs. Not only the girls and women are 
touched by this uplifting movement, but the men as 
well." 9 These clubs necessarily cultivate the spirit 
of independence, initiation, and thrift. The food thus 
saved gives abundant opportunity to furnish the table 
with a balanced ration, which good health demands. 
In like manner any of the points of weakness recited 
in Chapter VII. can be overcome by the application 
of the necessary means which industrial and other 



s Home Makers' Clubs for Negro Girls in Alabama, 1916. p. 

4- 

'"Idem, p. 15. 



io6 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

types of education now afford. Well-wishing will 
not eliminate the causes which render the negroes 
powerless in economic circles, nor will elaborate 
moralizing remove them. Why are not negroes buy- 
ing liberty loan bonds? The echo answers. The 
agent which has elevated races in the past is educa- 
tion, and it stands to reason that it will not fail now 
if given a test. Who, then, will invest his earnings 
in such a work of constructive effort as will redeem 
a race ? What Southern white man, who is acquainted 
with the negro character by reason of a lifelong con- 
tact, will relate himself to this uplifting agent in a de- 
gree of substantial friendship? 



REFERENCE BOOKS. 



General Literature. 

Francis E. Leupp, In Red Man's Land. Fleming H. Revell 
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John R. Mott, The Present World Situation. Student Vol- 
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Josiah Strong, Our World. Doubleday, Page & Co., New 
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Mayo-Smith, The Basis of Ascendancy. 

World's Best Histories, Vol. VIIL, Chapter V. The Co- 
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Slavery. 

Edward Ingle, Southern Side-Lights. T. Y. Crowell & Co., 
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Joseph A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America. 
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J. F. Rhodes, A History of the United States from the 
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William G. Brown, The Lower South in American History. 
Macmillan, New York. 1902. 

E. A. Pollard, The Lost Cause. Richmond and New York. 
A. B. Hart, The Southern South. D. Appleton & Co, New 

York and London. 1910. 
John E. Cairnes, The Slave Power. London, 1862. 

F. L Olmstead, Seaboard Slave States. New York. 1856. 
M. B. Hammond, The Cotton Industry. Published by 

the American Economic Association, No. 1. 1897. 

Sociology. 

F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation. T. Y. Crowell, 
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Amos G. Warner, American Charities. T. Y. Crowell, New 

York. 1894. 

Alfred G. Peabody, The Approach of the Social Question. 






108 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Lydia K. Commander, The American Idea. A. S. Barnes 
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Samuel G. Smith, Social Pathology. Macmillan Co., New 
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W. D. Weatherford, Lynchburg, Removing Its Cause. In- 
ternational Y. M. C. A. 

J. M. Gillette, Constructive Rural Sociology. Sturgus & 
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Edwin C. Hayes, Introduction to the Study of Sociology. 
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Economics. 

Charles Jesse Bullock, Introduction to the Study of Eco- 
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I9I3- 

Guy Stevens Callender, The Economic History of the United 
States, 1765-1860. Ginn & Co., Boston, New York, Chicago. 
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Ernest Ludlow Bogart, Economic History of the United 
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F. W. Taussig (two volumes), Principles of Economics. 
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W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New Eng- 
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P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seven- 
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Henry George, Progress and Poverty. Doubleday, Page & 
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C B. Fillebrown. The A B C of Taxation. Doubleday, 
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F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital. D. Appleton & Co., 
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F. W. Baldwyn, Lectures in Economic History, 1913 (class- 
room). 

Walter Bagehot, Economic Studies. Longmans, Green & 
Co., New York. 191 1. 

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Vols. I. and II. E. 
P. Dutton & Co., New York. 



Reference Books. 109 

Education. 

L. A. Weigle, The Pupil and the Teacher. Eaton & Mains, 
New York. 1911. 

E. C. Wilm, The Culture of Religion. The Pilgrim Press, 
Boston, New York, Chicago. igi5- 

C. G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 1915. 

International Encyclopedia, article "Negro Education." 

W. E. B. DuBois, The Negro Problem. 

E. G. Dexter, History of Education in the United States. 

Announcements and catalogues from fifteen negro schools. 

William C. Bagley, The Educative Process. Macmillan 
Co., New York. 1915. 

Nelson's Perpetual Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia. Thomas Nel- 
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Other Literature. 

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration. Scribner, New 
York. 1890. 

Carl Kelsey, The Negro Farmer. Jennings & Pye, Chicago. 
1903. 

W. E. B. DuBois, The Soul of Black Folk. A. C. Mc- 
Clurg & Co. 1904. 

J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Resources of the South and 
West. 

Chapter VIII. in The South Mobilizing for Social Service, 
Race Problems. Brandau-Craig-Dickerson Co., Nashville, 
Tenn. 1913. 

B. T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. II. 
Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. 1916. 

C. H. Otken, Ills of the South. 

J. A. Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel. Harper Bros., New 
York. 1914. 

Caroline E. MacGill, Immigration into Southern States, pp. 

584-594- 

Monroe N. Work, Negro Yearbook, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916- 

Yearbook Publishing Co. 

A. H. Shannon, Racial Integrity and Other Features. 
Smith & Lamar. 1907. 



1 10 The Negro as an Economic Factor in Alabama. 

Alfred H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem. 
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M. S. Evans, Blacks and Whites in Southern States. Long- 
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John M. Moore, The South To-Day. Smith & Lamar. 
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Thomas Nelson Page, The Negro the Southerner's Prob- 
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"The Negro Problem," article by C. W. Chestnut. 

W. P. Thirkield, The Negro and Organic Union of Meth- 
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Helen Marot, American Labor Unions. Henry Holt & Co., 
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Frank T. Carlton, History and Problem of Organized La- 
bor. D. C. Heath & Co., New York and Chicago. 191 1. 

Lawrence Veiller, Housing Problems. Charities Publica- 
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Government Reports. 

Thirteenth Census of United States, Vols. I. and II., Pop- 
ulation. 

Thirteenth Census of United States, Vol. VI., Agriculture. 

Mines and Quarries, 1902. 

Alabama Geological Survey. 

Twelfth Census of United States, Vol. IX., Manufactures. 

Statistical Atlas of United States, 1910. 

United States Census, 1900, Occupations. 

Mortality Statistics, 1913. 

Report of Board of Prison Inspectors, 1910-1914 (Ala- 
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Special Prison Report, 1914. 

Papers and Periodicals. 

The Birmingham Age-Herald, November 3, 1916. 
The New Decatur Advertiser, April 25, 1916. 
The Montgomery Advertiser, April 16, 1916. 



Reference Books. in 

The Outlook, New York, September 13, 1916. 

Tuskegee to Date, 1915 edition. 

Home Makers' Clubs for Negro Girls in Alabama, 1915. By 
the Department of Education, Montgomery, Ala. 

The Negro Rural School and Its Relation to the Com- 
munity. By Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Tus- 
kegee, Ala. 1915. 

Field Force Reports. Louisiana State Department of Edu- 
cation, Baton Rouge, La. 1917. 

Suggested Course for County Training Schools. By the 
Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, Lynchburg, Va. 191 7. 

An Educational Survey of Three Counties in Alabama. By 
Department of Education, Montgomery, Ala. 1914. 

The Phenomenal Philanthropy of 1916. By Chancellor W. 
A. Candler. Foote & Davies, Atlanta, Ga. 

Questionnaire. 

W. D. Partlow, Assistant Superintendent of Insane Hospital 
of Alabama. 1915. 

W. F. Feagin, State Superintendent of Education. 1916. 
Almshouse Report. 1914. 







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